Woman whose viral mugshot saved her life earned £19k in a week after getting out of jail
A woman whose mugshot went viral said it might have saved her life after she ended up making $24,000 (£19,000) in the week after she was released from prison.
Abbie Newman found viral fame as a result of her mugshot after arrests for shoplifting and disorderly conduct.
The 28-year-old had her mugshot posted to something called 'Mugshawtys', which shares women's mugshots to almost 750,000 followers on Instagram, and she ended up going viral thanks to it.
The Alabama woman had no idea of this at the time as she was in jail, but when she was released she saw that she'd gained a massive following on social media and people were tagging her mugshot.
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"I didn't even know until I got out of jail and saw that all of my social media had gained followers and I was being tagged everywhere with my mugshot up," she told the Daily Mail.
"Really it turned out for the best I suppose."
Her viral fame ended up driving support to her OnlyFans page and she revealed she made about $24,000 (£19,000) in the week after being released from jail thanks to all the new followers.
Abbie also said that her mugshot going viral may have saved her life as it came at a difficult time.
She said: "I was going through a lot at the time. I just had a miscarriage and was not myself - I was a whole mess.
"Honestly, going to jail didn't just help me financially, it also saved my life in a way.
"I'm a recovering heroin addict. I'm six years sober and after the miscarriage I was going down a dark path of depression. I have BPD (borderline personality disorder) and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and wasn't on my meds, so I wasn't myself.
"So going viral helped me not only pay off my debts and live a more comfortable life, it also helped me get back to myself."
It's not the only time getting a mugshot has ended up being a pretty successful career move for someone.
Jeremy Meeks took the internet by storm when his mugshot went viral and he became an internet meme, which resulted in him getting modelling offers and parts in movies when he came out of prison.
However, someone who also went viral for their mugshot seems to have had less luck at monetising the internet's attention as people mostly spent the time discussing his incredibly long neck.
Then, of course, there's the guy who commented on his own mugshot when police posted it as part of an appeal to try and find him.
Police were looking for a bloke named Kieran who hopped onto Facebook to tell them he'd he handing himself over in a few days time so he could get his 'affairs in order', and to also tell police they'd got his place of birth wrong.
Joe Harker