Donald Trump mugshot: Ex-president joins list of history’s most famous alongside OJ Simpson and Hugh Grant

Published

2 years ago

August 27, 2023

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Donald Trump’s scowling mugshot will rank among the most famous of all time.

The former president joins celebrities like OJ Simpson, Khloe Kardashian, Hugh Grant and other famous faces who have had their picture taken by the authorities after run-ins with the law.

While in the UK mugshots are only released when a defendant is convicted, in the US they are published as soon as someone is “booked” – or formally indicted.

If a fugitive is on the run, however, police make an exception to the rule in a bid to bring them to justice.

Here Sky News looks at some of the most memorable police portraits, from celebrities and crime bosses to dictators.

Justin Bieber

Bieber was stopped by police in Miami, Florida in 2014 for drag racing in a yellow Lamborghini with his friend, the singer Khalil, who was driving a red Ferrari.

He was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, marijuana and prescription drugs, as well as resisting arrest.

The then 19-year-old was driving “anywhere up to 55 to 60mph” in a 30mph zone, according to Miami Beach police chief Raymond Martinez. Mr Martinez said that he was a “little belligerent, using some choice words”.

Reports claimed he asked: “Why the f*** are you doing this?” and “What the f*** did I do? Why did you stop me? I ain’t got no f****** weapons.”

He was detained at 4.09am and his bail was set at $2,500 (£1,987). Eventually, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of driving without due care and attention and resisting arrest without violence.

OJ Simpson

The former NFL star’s dramatic arrest and trial for the alleged murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman are among the most memorable moments in US TV history.

When the pair were found stabbed to death outside Ms Brown’s home in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, Simpson was an immediate person of interest, having been accused of domestic violence a few years before.

He agreed, with his lawyers, to turn himself in five days after the deaths – by 11am on 17 June 1994 – but failed to do so.

Instead, he was chased by police in a white Ford Bronco, which was driven by his former teammate and friend Al Cowlings. Cowlings claimed he was threatening to shoot himself in the head with a pistol unless he was taken home.

Helicopter footage of the chase was broadcast live on TV to around 95 million people – many of whom had been watching the NBA basketball finals until scheduling was interrupted.

In 1995, he was found not guilty of both murders following the ‘trial of the century’, which was broadcast for TV.

This is one of several mugshots of Simpson.

He was convicted again in 2008, this time for robbery and kidnap, as part of a dispute over some of his sporting memorabilia at a Las Vegas casino hotel.

He served nine years in a Nevada prison and was released on parole in 2017.

Hugh Grant

Grant described his 1995 arrest for “lewd conduct in a public place” in Los Angeles as an “abominable thing” and a “moment of insanity”.

It came while he was in the US promoting the film Nine Months. On 27 June he was driving down Hollywood’s Sunset Strip when he decided to pick up a sex worker.

Divine Brown, real name Estella Marie Thompson, then performed oral sex on him inside the car in a nearby street, where the pair were picked up by police.

Grant, who had shot to fame for his lead role in Four Weddings and a Funeral, looked sheepish and embarrassed in his mugshot.

He was in a long-term relationship with fellow actor and model Liz Hurley, who said she “felt like she’d been shot” when she heard the news.

In a statement, Grant said: “Last night I did something completely insane. I have hurt people I love and embarrassed people I work with. For both things I am more sorry than I can ever possibly say.”

He did not attend his sentencing but was ordered to pay a fine of $1,000 (£795) and go on an AIDS education programme in his absence.

Brown, who had violated her probation for previous prostitution charges, was given a suspended 180-day prison sentence.

She was reportedly paid $100,000 (£79,500) by the now-defunct News of the World for her story, which saw her claim that Grant had told her: “I always wanted to sleep with a black woman. That’s my fantasy.”

Paris Hilton

Seven years after she first shot to notoriety for her leaked sex tape ‘A Night in Paris’, Hilton was arrested for suspected cocaine possession.

The then 29-year-old socialite was detained after a small amount of the drug fell out of her handbag at the Wynn Las Vegas Hotel in Nevada.

She told arresting officers the rolling papers, cash, credit cards and prescription asthma medication that also fell out were hers – but the cocaine belonged to an unidentified friend.

According to Las Vegas police lieutenant Dennis Flynn’s report, she claimed she thought the drug was gum.

She pleaded guilty to two misdemeanour charges of drug possession and obstructing a police officer and was sentenced to a year’s probation, 200 hours of community service and an intensive substance abuse programme.

Hilton, who had already been jailed for 45 days for driving under the influence and alcohol, and tried for marijuana possession, said she was embarrassed to have been photographed by so many people from inside the police car.

Khloe Kardashian

Kardashian was first arrested in Los Angeles in 2007 after she was pulled over by police, breathalysed and found to be over the legal alcohol limit.

She was ordered to carry out community service and attend an alcohol education course.

While she managed to attend some sessions, she skipped a few due to her busy work schedule.

The parole violation saw her hand herself in to the Los Angeles County jail the following year.

Before she surrendered, her mother Kris Jenner was famously captured scolding her sister Kim on their reality TV show Keeping Up With The Kardashians, saying: “Kim, would you stop taking pictures of yourself, your sister is going to jail.”

She was sentenced to 30 days in jail but only served 30 hours due to overcrowding at the facility.

The reality TV star was also ordered to complete another alcohol treatment plan.

Lindsay Lohan

In the years after she shot to fame for her leading roles in Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, Lohan was arrested and jailed several times.

In 2007 she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour of cocaine use and driving under the influence and was sentenced to a day in prison – but only served just over an hour.

A warrant was put out for her arrest in 2010 after she failed to appear in court for a driving under the influence (DUI) progress hearing.

Just a few months later she was sentenced to 90 days in jail for missing court-ordered counselling sessions – but only served two weeks due to prison overcrowding.

She spent another day behind bars after failing a drugs test in September 2010.

Another jail spell came in 2011 after she pleaded no contest to stealing a necklace.

Although she was arrested for an alleged assault in New York in 2012 she was never prosecuted.

Her final run-in with the law enforcement came in March 2013, which ended in her spending time in rehab having pleaded no contest to reckless driving and lying to police after she crashed her car.

In 2015 her probation ended and she was finally free of court orders for the first time in eight years. Since then she has stayed out of trouble and restarted her acting career.

‘Hot Felon’ Jeremy Meeks

Meeks shot to internet fame in 2014 after police released his mugshot online.

Convictions for robbery and assaulting a 16-year-old boy meant he had already spent time in prison, where he was recruited by the North Side Gangster Crips.

But when he was arrested in 2014 in a California gang sweep known as Operation Ceasefire, Stockton Police published his mugshot on their Facebook page, which quickly racked up thousands of likes and earned him the nickname ‘Hot Felon’.

While behind bars for firearm possession and grand theft at the Mendota Federal Correctional Institution, he caught the attention of various modelling agencies.

On his release in 2016, he was signed and began a career in fashion modelling.

He entered a relationship with Topshop heiress Chloe Green, with whom he is now believed to have a child.

Meeks also has a child with his ex-wife Melissa Meeks, who he was married to between 2008 and 2018.

Frank Sinatra

Sinatra was arrested in his hometown of Hoboken, New Jersey on the charge of “seduction” in 1938.

According to the FBI report: “He did then and there have sexual intercourse with the complainant, who was then and there a single female of good repute.”

He was released on bail for $1,500 (£1,192) but re-arrested a month later when police discovered the woman was married.

Sinatra was also one year into his marriage to his first wife Nancy Barbato.

The second charge of adultery was eventually dropped, with the singer only spending a few hours in jail.

Al Capone

One of the most notorious gangsters in US history, Al Capone began his criminal career as a teenager after becoming a member of the Five Points Gang.

He got the nickname Scarface following an altercation with his young rival Frank Gallucio over comments he made about his sister. While he was left with a cut on his left cheek, Gallucio’s actions ultimately saw Capone shoot him dead.

While still in New York, he became a bouncer for various organised crime premises but moved to Chicago to become joint boss of the Chicago Outfit, which illegally supplied alcohol during the Prohibition era.

He spent seven years as head of the syndicate before his intense conflict with the rival North Side Gang left police determined to put him in jail.

Eventually, he was charged with 22 counts of tax evasion and was convicted on five of them in 1931.

He was sentenced to 11 years in a federal prison but was released after eight having showed signs of neurosyphilis. He suffered a stroke and died of a heart attack at the age of 48 in 1947.

Joseph Stalin

Like his predecessor Vladimir Lenin, Russian dictator Joseph Stalin was arrested several times in his younger days and forced into internal exile in Siberia.

Tsarist authorities would repeatedly throw him in prison and banish him from places like Moscow and St Petersburg in a bid to hold onto power – but he often escaped via Baku, Azerbaijan, to return to his ‘illegal work’.

Stalin was exiled to Siberia for the final time in 1913 and remained there until the Russian revolution and the end of the empire in 1917.

This mugshot comes from 1911 – when he was in his early 30s.

During his time as leader of the USSR – from 1924 until his death in 1953 – he oversaw the execution of more than a million of his own citizens.

War crime trials of various Baltic leaders in the 1990s and early 2000s led to the prosecution of some Russian leaders for the crimes they committed during and after the Second World War. Most cases were carried out in their absence.

Vladimir Putin recognises the “horrors of Stalinism” but claims he has been “excessively demonised” by Russia’s enemies.

Bill Gates

Gates was arrested for the first time in 1975 for being caught speeding and driving without a licence in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

But his famous mugshot comes from his second arrest two years later.

On 13 December 1977 police pulled him over for failing to stop at a stop sign and driving without a licence again.

The following year he got three speeding fines for going too fast in his Porsche 911.

Gates co-founded Microsoft in 1975, eventually becoming the richest person on Earth – according to Forbes – between 1995 and 2017 – when he was overtaken by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Mick Jagger

Jagger was arrested with his Rolling Stones bandmate Keith Richards at Richards’ Sussex countryside cottage in February 1967.

At the time, police were keen to crack down on celebrities taking drugs and began campaigns against various bands including the Stones, The Who and Cream.

Tabloid newspapers, such as the now-defunct News of the World, teamed up with Scotland Yard to help apprehend certain stars.

Jagger was in the process of suing the paper for libel over stories they published about him and his then girlfriend Marianne Faithful, when they swooped on Richards’ home.

After raiding the Redlands estate in Sussex, they arrested Richards for cannabis possession and Jagger for Amphetamines.

They were both convicted and spent a night in prison – but had the charges overturned on appeal.

After their names were cleared, there was widespread condemnation of the police for deciding to prosecute them in the first place.

David Bowie

Like Jagger, Bowie’s police mugshot was stylish. Also like him, he was arrested on drugs charges – but in the US and for marijuana possession.

The arrest happened in Rochester, New York State, in the early hours of 21 May 1976 after a performance at the city’s community war memorial.

Police officers raided his and Iggy Pop’s hotel room and found around 170g of marijuana.

They were taken in with two others, held for three hours and released on bail for $2,000 (£1,500).

Both Bowie and Iggy Pop pleaded not guilty but the charges were eventually dropped after a grand jury decided not to indict them.

Wayne Rooney

Rooney has been arrested on both sides of the Atlantic, first for public intoxication at the airport in Washington DC while he was playing in the States for DC United in 2018.

According to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office: “He was booked into the Loudoun County Adult Detention Centre on December 16 2018, on a charge of public intoxication stemming from an arrest by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police (MWAA).

“He was later released on a personal recognizance bond.”

He was due to appear in court on 24 January – but avoided it with a $25 (£20) fine and paying $91 (£72) in court costs.

He was arrested for being three times over the legal drink-drive limit in Wilmslow, Cheshire the year before.

The former Manchester United star admitted “letting his family down” after being caught at the wheel of another woman’s Volkswagen Beetle at 2am on 1 September 2017.

He appeared at Stockport Magistrates Court and was fined the equivalent of two weeks’ salary – then £320,000 at Everton – and banned from driving for two years.

50 Cent

Before his hip-hop career, Curtis Jackson, now known as 50 Cent, was a drug dealer in his native Queens, New York City.

Having started out aged just 12, he was arrested for direct sale of a controlled substance after he was caught trying to sell four vials of crack cocaine to an undercover police officer in June 1994.

Weeks later, in August, police raided his home to find heroin, crack cocaine and a starter pistol.

He was sentenced to between three and nine years in prison, but as his offences were non-violent, he had the option to undergo the SHOCK programme instead.

The military-style boot camp for first-time offenders saw him out in just six months.

Soon after he was introduced to hip-hop executives – and the rest became music history.

US

US warplanes transit through UK as Trump considers striking Iran

Published

20 mins ago

June 21, 2025

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US warplanes transit through UK as Trump considers striking Iran

Flight tracking data shows extensive movement of US military aircraft towards the Middle East in recent days, including via the UK.

Fifty-two US military planes were spotted flying over the eastern Mediterranean towards the Middle East between Monday and Thursday.

That includes at least 25 that passed through Chania airport, on the Greek island of Crete – an eight-fold increase in the rate of arrivals compared to the first half of June.

The movement of military equipment comes as the US considers whether to assist Israel in its conflict with Iran.

Of the 52 planes spotted over the eastern Mediterranean, 32 are used for transporting troops or cargo, 18 are used for mid-air refuelling and two are reconnaissance planes.

Forbes McKenzie, founder of McKenzie Intelligence, says that this indicates “the build-up of warfighting capability, which was not [in the region] before”.

Sky’s data does not include fighter jets, which typically fly without publicly revealing their location.

An air traffic control recording from Wednesday suggests that F-22 Raptors are among the planes being sent across the Atlantic, while 12 F-35 fighter jets were photographed travelling from the UK to the Middle East on Wednesday.

Many US military planes are passing through UK

A growing number of US Air Force planes have been passing through the UK in recent days.

Analysis of flight tracking data at three key air bases in the UK shows 63 US military flights landing between 16 and 19 June – more than double the rate of arrivals earlier in June.

On Thursday, Sky News filmed three US military C-17A Globemaster III transport aircraft and a C-130 Hercules military cargo plane arriving at Glasgow’s Prestwick Airport.

Flight tracking data shows that one of the planes arrived from an air base in Jordan, having earlier travelled there from Germany.

What does Israel need from US?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on 15 March that his country’s aim is to remove “two existential threats – the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat”.

Israel says that Iran is attempting to develop a nuclear bomb, though Iran says its nuclear facilities are only for civilian energy purposes.

A US intelligence assessment in March concluded that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. President Trump dismissed the assessment on Tuesday, saying: “I think they were very close to having one.”

Forbes McKenzie says the Americans have a “very similar inventory of weapons systems” to the Israelis, “but of course, they also have the much-talked-about GBU-57”.

The GBU-57 is a 30,000lb bomb – the largest non-nuclear bomb in existence. Mr McKenzie explains that it is “specifically designed to destroy targets which are very deep underground”.

Experts say it is the only weapon with any chance of destroying Iran’s main enrichment site, which is located underneath a mountain at Fordow.

Air-to-air refuelling could allow Israel to carry larger bombs

Among the dozens of US aircraft that Sky News tracked over the eastern Mediterranean in recent days, more than a third (18 planes) were designed for air-to-air refuelling.

“These are crucial because Israel is the best part of a thousand miles away from Iran,” says Sky News military analyst Sean Bell.

“Most military fighter jets would struggle to do those 2,000-mile round trips and have enough combat fuel.”

The ability to refuel mid-flight would also allow Israeli planes to carry heavier munitions, including bunker-buster bombs necessary to destroy the tunnels and silos where Iran stores many of its missiles.

Satellite imagery captured on 15 June shows the aftermath of Israeli strikes on a missile facility near the western city of Kermanshah, which destroyed at least 12 buildings at the site.

At least four tunnel entrances were also damaged in the strikes, two of which can be seen in the image below.

Writing for Jane’s Defence Weekly, military analyst Jeremy Binnie says it looked like the tunnels were “targeted using guided munitions coming in at angles, not destroyed from above using penetrator bombs, raising the possibility that the damage can be cleared, enabling any [missile launchers] trapped inside to deploy”.

“This might reflect the limited payloads that Israeli aircraft can carry to Iran,” he adds.

Penetrator bombs, also known as bunker-busters, are much heavier than other types of munitions and as a result require more fuel to transport.

Israel does not have the latest generation of refuelling aircraft, Mr Binnie says, meaning it is likely to struggle to deploy a significant number of penetrator bombs.

Israel has struck most of Iran’s western missile bases

Even without direct US assistance, the Israeli air force has managed to inflict significant damage on Iran’s missile launch capacity.

Sky News has confirmed Israeli strikes on at least five of Iran’s six known missile bases in the west of the country.

On Monday, the IDF said that its strategy of targeting western launch sites had forced Iran to rely on its bases in the centre of the country, such as Isfahan – around 1,500km (930 miles) from Israel.

Among Iran’s most advanced weapons are three types of solid-fuelled rockets fitted with highly manoeuvrable warheads: Fattah-1, Kheibar Shekan and Haj Qassam.

The use of solid fuel makes these missiles easy to transport and fast to launch, while their manoeuvrable warheads make them better at evading Israeli air defences. However, none of them are capable of striking Israel from such a distance.

Iran is known to possess five types of missile capable of travelling more than 1,500km, but only one of these uses solid fuel – the Sijjil-1.

On 18 June, Iran claimed to have used this missile against Israel for the first time.

Iran’s missiles have caused significant damage

Iran’s missile attacks have killed at least 24 people in Israel and wounded hundreds, according to the Israeli foreign ministry.

The number of air raid alerts in Israel has topped 1,000 every day since the start of hostilities, reaching a peak of 3,024 on 15 June.

Iran has managed to strike some government buildings, including one in the city of Haifa on Friday.

And on 13 June, in Iran’s most notable targeting success so far, an Iranian missile impacted on or near the headquarters of Israel’s defence ministry in Tel Aviv.

Most of the Iranian strikes verified by Sky News, however, have hit civilian targets. These include residential buildings, a school and a university.

On Thursday, one missile hit the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, southern Israel’s main hospital. More than 70 people were injured, according to Israel’s health ministry.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran had struck a nearby technology park containing an IDF cyber defence training centre, and that the “blast wave caused superficial damage to a small section” of the hospital.

However, the technology park is in fact 1.2km away from where the missile struck.

Photos of the hospital show evidence of a direct hit, with a large section of one building’s roof completely destroyed.

Iran successfully struck the technology park on Friday, though its missile fell in an open area, causing damage to a nearby residential building but no casualties.

Israel has killed much of Iran’s military leadership

It’s not clear exactly how many people Israel’s strikes in Iran have killed, or how many are civilians. Estimates by human rights groups of the total number of fatalities exceed 600.

What is clear is that among the military personnel killed are many key figures in the Iranian armed forces, including the military’s chief of staff, deputy head of intelligence and deputy head of operations.

Key figures in the powerful Revolutionary Guard have also been killed, including the militia’s commander-in-chief, its aerospace force commander and its air defences commander.

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that US assistance was not necessary for Israel to win the war.

“We will achieve all our objectives and hit all of their nuclear facilities,” he said. “We have the capability to do that.”

Forbes McKenzie says that while Israel has secured significant victories in the war so far, “they only have so much fuel, they only have so many munitions”.

“The Americans have an ability to keep up the pace of operations that the Israelis have started, and they’re able to do it for an indefinite period of time.”

Additional reporting by data journalist Joely Santa Cruz and OSINT producers Freya Gibson, Lina-Sirine Zitout and Sam Doak.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

US

Trump’s two-week timeline: What next for Iran?

Published

6 hours ago

June 20, 2025

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Trump's two-week timeline: What next for Iran?

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said Donald Trump will make a decision on whether to militarily strike Iran in the next two weeks. That’s as diplomatic talks between Western governments and the Iranians ramp up.

In today’s episode, US correspondents Mark Stone and Martha Kelner unpick why the delay might be, and the competing voices in the ears of the president.

If you’ve got a question you’d like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@sky.uk.

Don’t forget, you can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

US

Trump’s update on Iran timeline is significant – but it still keeps everyone guessing

Published

6 hours ago

June 20, 2025

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Donald Trump weighing up many risks before possible US strike on Iran

This is the most significant statement from the US president in days, though it still keeps everyone guessing.

In a message conveyed through his press secretary, he is giving diplomacy up to two weeks to work.

“Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” Karoline Leavitt quoted him as saying.

It is not clear what “whether or not to go” entails.

Israel-Iran conflict: Latest updates

We know that he has been given a spectrum of different military options by his generals and we know that the Israelis are pressuring him to use American B2 bombers with their bunker-busting bombs to destroy Iran’s nuclear facility at Fodow.

The Israelis are encouraging no delay. But against that, he is weighing up many risks, both military and political.

Militarily, it is not clear how successful a bunker-busting strike on Fordow would be.

Experts have suggested it would require several of the massive bombs, which have never been used in combat before, to be dropped on the site.

It is not as simple as one clean strike and job done.

Politically, the president is under significant pressure domestically not to get involved in Iran.

Within his own MAGA coalition – influencers, politicians and media personalities are lining up in criticism of involvement in the conflict.

One of those leading the criticism, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who maintains huge influence, was seen entering the White House on Thursday.

His press secretary reiterated to us that the president always wants to give diplomacy a chance and she confirmed that his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has spoken to the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.

European leaders, including the UK foreign secretary David Lammy, who is in Washington, are meeting Mr Araghchi in Geneva on Friday.

The two-week window – assuming it lasts that long – also gives space to better prepare for any strike and mitigate against some of the other risks of US involvement.

There are 40,000 troops in bases across the Middle East. It takes time to increase security at these bases or to move non-essential personnel out. It also takes time to move strategic military assets into the region.

The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its support vessels were redeployed from the Indo-Pacific on Monday. Their last known position was the Strait of Malacca two days ago.

The Nimitz Carrier Group will overlap with the USS Carl Vinson group which was deployed to the Middle East in March.

The potential two-week window also allows for more time for a ‘day after’ plan, given that the Israeli strategy appears to be regime change from within.

Since the Israeli action in Iran began last week, the worst-case scenario of mass casualties in Israel from Iranian attacks has not materialised.

The president is said to be surprised and encouraged by this. “Israel has exceeded a lot of people’s expectations in their abilities,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

The Israeli success, the absence of a mass casualty event in Israel, and the lack of any sustained counterattack by Iranian proxies in the region remove reservations that previous presidents have had about taking on Iran.

That said, sources have told Sky News that the president is determined that the diplomatic solution should be given a chance despite current pessimism over the chances of success.

A critical two weeks ahead.