It's been a couple a years since the incident in question (and almost four years to the day since his similar indiscretion on home turf), but now we know what JRM said to those French police who arrested him in 2009 in Charles De Gaulle airport. This is front page news, by the by.
He was given a one-year suspended sentence yesterday for acting the goat in the Parisian airport (this didn't stop him also acting the maggot in a New York airport shortly after), and a fine.Â
The Mirror reports: "A court heard how he first kicked a barman and swore at him because he refused to pour him a drink. Rhys Meyers, who plays Henry VIII in BBC series The Tudors, then abused and tried to resist the gendarmes who arrived to arrest him. The Irish (yaaaaay) actor, who had been waiting for a plane home to Dublin in 2009, screamed: "I'm going to give a million dollars to ruin your life. I'll kill you and your family!" Rhys Meyers admitted the facts but said he had "no recollection" of certain elements and deeply regretted what he had done. Vincent Tolenano, defending, said he had a "frail personality" and was "a fragile person who suffered from personal demons."
In addition to his one-year suspended and therefore pretendy sentence, he was given a fine in the region of €900. That's very lenient considering JRM was willing to fork over a million dollars to ruin a randomer's life. He wasn't personally given the fine either, he didn't even attend court. Instead he paid defense lawyer Tolenano say things like "the court has decided to educate Rhys Meyers because of his fame". What does that even mean?
At least he admitted to what he is. He could've gone down the route of "But, but, but, I was immersed in character", which was patented by Winona Ryder in 2002, and then reinforced in 2008.
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