‘World’s hottest felon’ Jeremy Meeks revealed how viral fame affected him in prison
Jeremy Meeks shot to viral fame in 2014 when his mugshot started doing the rounds on social media, and he was dubbed the 'world's hottest felon'.
However, that fame affected his time behind bars as he explained on the Inside True Crime podcast, where he spoke with Matthew Cox about the impact the mugshot that catapulted him to fame had on him while he was still in prison.
Meeks, who is still working as a model today, told the podcast he didn't have social media, so when he was told he'd gone viral, he didn't really understand what that meant, but he now had news channels coming in to try and speak with him.
Saying he didn't 'understand fads and social media', he started realising the extent of his fame when he saw his mugshot on various TV screens, which was only the beginning of the attention he got.
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"I would say on the third day, that's when just... floods and floods of letters from all over the world. I was probably getting 300 letters a day," he explained.
Meeks said he was being sent 'naked pictures' and 'money orders,' and it was 'too much', so he couldn't even read through everything he was being sent, and started passing the pictures around.
It wasn't all floods of letters and people sending him money, as he told the podcast 'then the hate came from the correction officers' and his court appearances became chaotic.
He said: "Because it's a state case and in state, there now can be press in the courtroom. Every time I went into the courtroom there was 100 reporters and everyone was fighting each other for better angles and the judge is screaming.
"It was like a zoo in there. I had been to court 100 times and it was never like this."
Meeks claimed correction officers were beating the 's**t out of him for a while', and he was 'angry' with them, though he said he never had issues with his fellow inmates and if there ever were incidents behind bars he had 'always been the aggressor'.
He also said it was 'so frustrating' when people he didn't know would try to visit him in prison, as they were taking up visiting time that could otherwise have gone to his family.
Meeks had been arrested in 2014 by Stockton Police in California.
Police said they captured Meeks, along with four other men, as part of their Operation Ceasefire plan, which was achieved through a joint effort from the FBI, the community response team, gang task force, and nine other organisations.
However, no one could have predicted the response to the now-42-year-old when police released his mugshot onto their Facebook page.
According to the BBC, Meeks' mugshot generated 95,000 likes and 25,000 comments, with a spokesperson for the department telling Associated Press: "I have not seen that many likes for a photo before."
Why did Jeremy Meeks go to jail?
According to the BBC, Meeks was arrested on five weapons charges and one gang charge, with the Los Angeles Times reporting at the time that police found him with a semiautomatic handgun and two extended magazines for it.
Meanwhile, Officer Joseph Silva, a spokesman for the Stockton Police Department, called him 'one of the most violent criminals in the Stockton area'.
In 2015, Meeks was convicted of felony firearm possession and was sentenced to 27 months in prison, before being released in March 2016.
After his release, he wrote on Instagram: "I want to thank my family and everybody for all your love, support and prayers. I'm overwhelmed and grateful for what lies ahead. I'm ready."
What happened to Jeremy Meeks?
A modelling career followed his release from prison in 2016, and he still works as one, making appearances where he does what the kids these days call 'serving face'.
He was signed to White Cross Management prior to entering prison, and in 2017, he made his runway debut by walking for Philipp Plein at New York Fashion Week.
He still looks pretty similar to the way he did over a decade ago when his mugshot went viral; it's still the same face, and he's appeared at all sorts of fashion shows over the years in his work as a model.
A couple of years ago, he also wrote his memoir, Model Citizen: The Autobiography of Jeremy Meeks, and he also does charity work with underprivileged youths to try to help them avoid crime and gang culture.
Meeks had previously been married to Melissa Meeks, with whom he shares one son. But in 2018, the pair divorced after nearly 10 years together.
He then began a relationship with Topshop heiress Chloe Green, whom he was spotted with on a yacht in 2017. They then welcomed a child together in 2018.
However, in 2019, the two called it quits, with Meeks telling People in 2024 that he was single, adding: "I'm trying to focus on myself."
He has previously discussed his relationships with his two ex-partners, telling Extra in 2020 that they are 'all co-parenting' and called Melissa and Chloe 'incredible mothers'.
Joe Harker