Robert Downey Jr says that his time in prison was ‘the worst thing that happened to me’

Star of the ‘Iron Man’ films served a year in prison in his 30s after missing court-ordered drug tests

Robert Downey Jr has looked back on his stint in prison in the 1990s, calling it the “worst thing that happened” to him.

The 58-year-old actor has been a Hollywood mainstay since the 1980s, having made an impression in films such as Weird Science (1985) and Less than Zero (1987).

In his early career, Downey faced substance addiction and various drug charges. He has been sober since July 2003.

Downey was featured on Monday’s edition (19 June) of the Armchair Expert podcast to promote his forthcoming Max show Downey’s Dream Cars.

He spoke to co-host Dax Shepard about the time he was sentenced to three years in prison in 1999, aged 34, after repeatedly missing court-ordered drug tests.

Downey began to recount the story, claiming that he was “over-sentenced by an angry judge”.

“At some point, he said something in Latin and I thought he was casting a spell on me,” he added, to the amusement of Shepard and co-presenter Monica Padman.

The story then jumped to two weeks later, when Downey was in Delano, California at North Kern State Prison, which he described as a “receiving centre where they decide where you’re going to go”.

As the location was mainly for organisation purposes, inmates were not separated depending on their crime, meaning that Downey was in the presence of people who had committed severely violent acts.

“You could just feel the evil in the air, and that was no trouble at all because it was kind of like just being in a really bad neighbourhood,” Downey explained, adding: “There was no opportunity there. There was only threats.”

Robert Downey Jr (Getty Images)

Downey explained that he was soon moved to the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, where he began to come to terms with his substance issues and how they had led him to incarceration.

“We are programmed to, within a short amount of time, be able to adjust to things that are seemingly impossible,” he said.

“And for me, there’s worse things that could have happened than being sent to an institution, for sure. However, we can only go by what we know, and I would imagine if I had to guess, that was the worst thing that happened to me.”

Ultimately, Downey served only a year of his sentence as he was granted early release in 2000 after posting bail.

He has been married to his wife, Susan Downey, since 2005. From 1984 to 1991, he was in a relationship with Sarah Jessica Parker, who recently reflected on being together with the actor amid his addiction struggle.

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