Gillian Anderson is opening up about a wild incident from her teenage years that ultimately ended with her getting arrested.
During Monday’s (August 17) episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, the former X-Files star revealed that she was high on crystal meth when she was arrested for breaking into her high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1986. Anderson was 17 at the time.
Recalling the incident, Anderson said she was going through a “punk phase” and was wearing “pointy buckle boots” when she broke into her former school, 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 explained that she and her boyfriend, who joined her on the escapade, were trying to glue the locks of the building shut.
She also admitted that she likely would have “outsmarted” the security guard if she hadn’t stepped on the nail. Anderson then opened up about being 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.
In an ironic twist, Anderson had previously been voted ‘Most Likely to Get Arrested,’ making the incident a case of a prediction coming true. In a 1997 Us Weekly interview, as reported by The Telegraph, Anderson recalled that although she wasn’t required to pay a fine after her arrest, she was sentenced to 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.”
