In a shocking revelation on their shared podcast, actor Harry Hamlin has detailed a traumatic experience from his youth, where he was allegedly forced to consume the powerful hallucinogenic drug phencyclidine (PCP) while behind bars.
A Fateful Errand Leads to Jail Time
Hamlin, now 74, was just 21 years old when he was arrested in 1970. The incident stemmed from a task given to him by an upperclassman in his fraternity at the University of California, Berkeley. He was instructed to transport a batch of pills, which he identified as the drug speed, to another fraternity house at the University of Southern California (USC) around Thanksgiving.
"My upperclassmen in the fraternity house I was living in came to me before I was going down to LA for Thanksgiving, which is right around exam time, and he said, 'Take these pills down and give them to another house at USC. They need these for their exam,'" Hamlin explained. However, the intended recipients refused the delivery, forcing Hamlin to carry the drugs back with him, leading to his arrest.
A Terrifying Ordeal Behind Bars
After pleading guilty, the young college student was sentenced to serve 18 days in jail over several weekends. Despite having a connection with the jail warden through mutual ties to Berkeley's acting scene, Hamlin found himself in a perilous situation. He was placed in a holding cell with a distraught young man and, taking pity, asked to join him. This cell turned out to be a "felony cell" housing inmates convicted of serious crimes.
When the other young man was released on bail, Hamlin was left alone with the group. The inmates began passing around what appeared to be a joint. After Hamlin repeatedly declined, one inmate became insistent, adopting a serious tone and commanding, "Have. Some. Of. This."
"I was forced to smoke PCP," Hamlin stated. "I was so stoned because [an inmate] forced me to take three or four hits of it and I was completely messed up after I had that." He later clarified that the substance was rolling tobacco soaked in PCP, which produced no odour but left the users "high as kites."
Life After the Incident
Hamlin eventually moved past this dark chapter, building a successful acting career and a lasting family life. He met television personality Lisa Rinna in 1992, and the couple married in 1997. They share two daughters: Delilah, 27, and Amelia, 24.
The pair recently launched a podcast titled Let's Not Talk About The Husband on Valentine's Day this year. In a joint statement, they promised to dish on "everything from marriage and family to friendships, business, and fame" after more than three decades together. Rinna, a former star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, left the show in 2023 after its twelfth season.
This startling confession offers a stark glimpse into the risks and consequences of drug-related activities, even those undertaken under peer pressure decades ago.
