Gillian Anderson looked back on a rambunctious moment of her teenage years that resulted in an arrest.
The former X-Files actress revealed on the Monday (August 17) episode of podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend that she was on crystal meth when she was arrested for breaking into her Grand Rapids, Michigan school back in 1986. Anderson would have been 17 years old at the time.
Anderson shared that around the time of the incident, she was in a “punk phase” and had on “pointy buckle boots” while breaking into her alma mater, City High-Middle School.
“So when the security guard was chasing me through downtown Grand Rapids, I stepped on a nail, and that's what slowed me down,” she explained.
Earlier in the interview, Anderson said that her and her boyfriend, who accompanied her during the trek, were attempting to glue the building locks shut.
Anderson went on to reflect that she would have “outsmarted” the security guard if she didn’t step on a nail, along with revealing that she was high during the break-in. "Let's just say I was doing a little crystal meth at the time and I was in a really good mood, I managed to talk them out of breaking and entering and just into trespassing."
“But my boyfriend, who was with me at the time, who was considerably older than I was, went back to his apartment and smoked some more dope and just kept drinking the night away while I was in prison,” Anderson added.
Ironically, the actress was voted ‘Most Likely to Get Arrested,’ which was a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a 1997 Us Weekly interview, per The Telegraph, Anderson said that while she didn’t have to pay a fine following the arrest, she was ordered to complete community service.
“For a week I had to clean this YMCA, which was entirely humiliating,” she said. “The guy who ran the place was kind of mean to me when I had to scrub floors and polish windows and do all that kind of yucky stuff that you don't want to do on a summer day."
