Lori Loughlin and more who made comebacks after jail, arrests
From handcuffs to designer cufflinks.
Lori Loughlin stars in a new show out Thursday, Prime Video’s “On Call.” This marks the continuation of a comeback for the former “Full House” star, 60, who has quietly been returning to Hollywood post-prison.
“I can say for me, I’m always so happy to just get the phone call and be offered the job,” Loughlin exclusively told The Post about the new gig.
Ironically, she plays a cop in her latest show.
“I was so flattered and honored to be offered the role because it is so different for me,” she added.
Loughlin was arrested in 2019 for her culpability in the college admissions scandal. She served two months in prison and was released in December 2020.
She joins the ranks of several stars who have either been to prison, or had high profile arrests before proceeding to continue their showbiz careers.
Felicity Huffman
Huffman, 62, was arrested for the same college admissions scandal as Loughlin.
In an interview with ABC-7 “Eyewitness News” that aired in Dec. 2023, Huffman broke her silence about her role in the wide-ranging criminal conspiracy, in which wealthy parents of high school students were charged with using bribery, cheating and fraud to fake their kids’ ways into elite colleges.
“People assume that I went into this looking for a way to cheat the system and making proverbial criminal deals in back alleys, but that was not the case. I worked with a highly recommended college counselor named Rick Singer,” Huffman said, referring to the ringleader of the scheme, who was sentenced to 3½ years in federal prison.
The “Desperate Housewives” star, who paid $15,000 to have her daughter’s SAT answers falsified, served 11 days in jail for the scheme in October 2019. Huffman’s husband, William H. Macy, was not charged with any wrongdoing.
Huffman has since returned to acting, with roles in “Criminal Minds: Evolution” and shows like Fox’s “Accused.”
Robert Downey Jr.
The most famous – and most dramatic – “jail to fame” turn-around, Downey Jr. got his first Oscar nomination for “Chaplin” in 1993 and his second for “Tropic Thunder” in 2009. He finally won for “Oppenheimer” in 2024.
In 1996, the “Iron Man” star was arrested and charged with drug and weapon charges. In 1999, he was sentenced to three years in prison, serving 15 months.
During a 2023 interview on the Armchair Expert podcast, Downey Jr. opened up about his time in prison.
“You could just feel the evil in the air,” he recalled.
“It was kind of like just being in a really bad neighborhood, and there was no opportunity there; there was only threats,” Downey Jr. added.
The Oscar winner continued, “We are programmed to, within a short amount of time, be able to adjust to things that are seemingly impossible. … Day 15 was a ball. By day 15 I’m playing, literally, I’m dialed in.”
Around 15 years after his stint in prison, by 2015, he was officially the world’s highest earning actor.
Winona Ryder
Ryder, 53, didn’t officially go to jail, but she had a high profile arrest.
In December 2001, Ryder was convicted of grand theft and shoplifting merchandise worth nearly $6,000 from a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Ultimately, the “Edward Scissorhands” actress was fined, sentenced to three years probation, and ordered to complete community service.
The arrest “definitely had a giant effect” on her career the “Girl, Interrupted” star told Esquire in an August 2024 interview.
“It kept being like, ‘Oh, it’s fine, this is just, like, paperwork,’ and I was like, ‘OK.’ I was so confused. I just remember being told I was going to go to prison. I was like, ‘Huh? What are you talking about?’ ” she told the outlet.
Following that incident, she bounced back with a career resurgence when “Stranger Things” premiered in 2016, and other high profile roles such as the long anticipated “Beetlejuice” sequel in 2024.
Tim Allen
Allen, 71, started his career with stand up comedy in 1975. In October 1978, he was arrested for possession of cocaine. After pleading guilty to felony drug trafficking, he ended up serving two years and four months in prison before getting paroled in 1981. The bulk of his career, including “Home Improvement,” “Last Man Standing,” and “The Toy Story Franchise,” happened afterwards.
In 2023, Allen opened up about his past on the WTF With Marc Maron podcast.
“I was an F-up,” he said.
The “Santa Clause” star said about his time behind bars, “I just shut up and did what I was told. It was the first time ever I did what I was told and played the game. I learned literally how to live day by day. And I learned how to shut up. You definitely want to learn how to shut up.”
Mickey Rourke
Rourke, 72, has been arrested several times, including a 1994 arrest on suspicion of spousal abuse against his then-wife, Carre Otis. He pleaded not guilty, and the charges were later dropped, but he was arrested again in 2007 on DUI charges in Miami Beach.
His most famous and critically acclaimed role was the 2008 sports drama “The Wrestler,” which earned him a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination – all after his brushes with the law.
In a 2008 interview, Rourke told The Guardian, “Especially if you’re living in a sh-thole town like LA, a town that’s based on envy, you were once somebody and you f-k it up. For me, it was over a 15-year period. And you are reminded of it every single day. And I behaved and misbehaved so terribly that they let you know it in a real nasty way. But the thing is I caused all my own misery.’
He added amid his acclaim for “The Wrestler,” that he didn’t think “I’d come back to this level ever again.”
Martha Stewart
Another famous case, Stewart, 83, served five months in federal prison from 2004 to 2005 for charges related to conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
She opened up about her experience in letters, and in the 2024 Netflix documentary “Martha.”
“Today I saw two very well-dressed ladies walking and I breezed by them, remarking on the beautiful warm morning and how nice they looked. When I realized from the big silver key chain that they were guards, I lightly brushed the chain,” she wrote in a letter during her time in prison.
“Later I was called in to be told never, ever touch a guard without expecting severe reprimand.”
The lifestyle guru had a career resurgence after that, staying in the spotlight for her odd-couple friendship with Snoop Dogg, and she even graced the cover of Sports Illustrated, becoming the oldest model in the publication’s history.
Wesley Snipes
The “Blade” star, 62, was sentenced to three years in prison in 2008 and fined $5 million for failing to file millions of dollars worth of past tax returns. In 2010, he began his sentence at a federal prison, and he was released in 2013 after serving two and a half years.
“I came out a clearer person,” he told The Guardian in 2020. “Clearer on my values, clearer on my purpose, clearer about my relationship with my ancestors and the great god and the great goddess above, and clearer on what I was going to do once I had my freedom back.”
Since then, Snipes appeared in the 2024 hit “Deadpool & Wolverine” and he was in the 2021 miniseries “True Story.”
Hugh Grant
Like Winona Ryder, Grant never went to prison. However, he was infamously arrested in 1995 for lewd conduct with a sex worker in Los Angeles. He pleaded no contest, was fined $1,000 and got two years’ summary probation and compulsory participation in an AIDS education program, according to The Independent.
The bulk of Grant’s career happened after this incident, and he’s had a renaissance in recent years, appearing in a slew of popular movies like “The Gentlemen,” “Paddington 2,” the “Knives Out” sequel, “Wonka,” and “Heretic.”
Grant spoke about the scandal to People in 2018, saying at the time he “was just an idiot.”
“I didn’t try to say, ‘I’ve got this psychological problem.’ I just said, ‘I did it,’” he said.
During the Oct. 2024 premiere for Heretic, which took place near the area where he got arrested, the “Bridget Jones” star joked in footage captured by The Hollywood Reporter, “It is very nice to be here. Hollywood Boulevard has always been a lucky place for me.”
