Before becoming Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. was far removed from Hollywood glamour – a maximum-security prison. In 1999, his battle with addiction led to a three-year sentence, and he spent 15 months behind bars in California’s Corcoran State Prison. “You could just feel the evil in the air,” Downey Jr. recalled on Armchair Expert. “There was no opportunity there. There were only threats.”
His legal troubles started in 1996 when he was arrested for heroin, cocaine, and an unloaded .357 Magnum. Probation and mandatory drug tests followed. But when he missed a test in 1997, he landed in Los Angeles County jail for nearly four months. A second missed test in 1999 sealed his fate – he was sentenced to prison. Two weeks in, RDJ found himself at Delano, a violent reception center where inmates awaited permanent placement. “Arguably the most dangerous place I’ve ever been in my life because nobody is designated,” he admitted.
Even everyday routines became high-stakes moments. “I remember walking out at one point when I hopped out of my cell to go to the shower, by the way, this would be the best soundbite, and I didn’t know it but I was a little spun out and I had my underwear on backwards,” Robert Downey Jr. said. “I remember eliciting some strong chuckles and jeers from my fellow inmates.”
Despite the grim environment, he adapted. “We are programmed to within a short amount of time be able to adjust to things that are seemingly impossible,” the Oppenheimer actor reflected. His arrest on Thanksgiving weekend in 2000 for cocaine and Valium possession could have sent him back, but he avoided more jail time. Another arrest in 2001 for wandering in an alley signaled a rock-bottom moment. Then, finally, he got clean.
Today, Robert Downey Jr. is a Hollywood icon, but his past remains a stark reminder of how far he has come.
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