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Legal
Fiona Apple and her jailer speak about drugs arrest
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 25 September 2012
Fiona Apple has spoken about her arrest for cannabis possession last week at her first gig following the incident. As previously reported, the musician spent a night in a Texas jail before being released on a $10,000 bail after border patrol officials found cannabis on her tour bus. The brief incarceration caused a planned concert in Austin to be postponed.
Speaking about the incident at a show in Houston on Saturday, Apple said she was basically treated well during her very brief jail stint, but that she had issues with four specific prison guards. The implication of the singer’s on-stage ramble – subsequently posted to YouTube, obviously – was that she’d not reveal said guards’ misdemeanours providing they didn’t try to capitalise on having had a celebrity in their cells for a few moments of fame. Or something like that.
Said Apple: “Now, most of the people were very nice to me. [But] there are four of you out there, and I want you to know that I heard everything you did. I wrote it all down with your names, and everything you did and said stupidly thinking that I couldn’t hear or see you. I then ripped the paper up, but not before I encoded it and, I got two lock boxes. We’ll call them ‘holding cell one’ and ‘holding cell two’. In ‘holding cell one’ is the encoded version of the shit that you did that I know was inappropriate and probably illegal. In ‘holding cell two’ is the decoder”.
She continued: “I’m the only one who holds the key, and you and I will be intimate forever because I will hold that secret forever. Unless of course the ‘celebrity’ that you had so much interest in – but you wanted to accuse me of bringing up, while you laughed at me all night – [well if] you’re interested in being a celebrity, I’ll make you fucking famous any time you ask and I’ll open those boxes. So why don’t you stay in your fucking holding cell?”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, staff at the Hudspeth County Sheriff department weren’t very impressed with Apple’s on-stage threats, and have told reporters that the singer should either file a formal complaint or shut up, adding that staff at the unit weren’t in the business of scoring brief moments of fame by publicly bragging about their celebrity inmates.
In an open letter to Apple, the sheriff department’s Public Information Officer Rusty Fleming wrote: “First, honey, I’m already more famous than you, I don’t need your help. However, it would appear that you need mine. Have you ever heard of Snoop [Dogg], Willie [Nelson] or Armand Hammer? Maybe if you would read something besides your own press releases, you would have known BEFORE you got here, that if you come to Texas with dope, the cops will take your DOPE away and put YOU in jail”.
She added: “You and I only met briefly in the hallway, [so] I don’t [really] know you, but I’m sure you’re an awesome and talented young woman. [And] I’m sure that [your fans] would just as soon you get this all behind you and let you go back to what you do best – so my last piece of advice is simple ‘just shut-up and sing’. Sincerely, Rusty Fleming”.
