The Glen Campbell mugshot that circulated in late 2003 came from a Phoenix arrest on November 24 of that year, after the country and pop star crashed his BMW into another car, drove off, and then struggled with officers at booking. He was charged with extreme drunken driving, hit and run, and aggravated assault on a police officer. Campbell later said the disheveled, scowling image so unsettled him that he barely recognized himself in it.
The Phoenix Arrest
Around 5:00 p.m. on November 24, 2003, Campbell’s silver BMW struck a white Toyota Camry at a Phoenix intersection. No one was hurt. Campbell drove away. A witness followed him while calling police on a cell phone and led officers to his home in the Biltmore Estates neighborhood, where he was taken into custody.1CNN. Glen Campbell Arrested for DUI, Hit and Run, Assault
Officers reported a strong odor of alcohol. A breath test measured his blood-alcohol level at 0.20, more than twice Arizona’s 0.08 limit and above the 0.15 threshold the state uses for “extreme” DUI.2CBS News. Glen Campbell Gets 10 Days in Jail
Things got worse at the Maricopa County jail. While being placed in a patrol car, Campbell hit the car door. During booking, he kneed a police sergeant in the upper right thigh; Phoenix Police Sgt. Randy Force told reporters the sergeant avoided a more serious blow by turning his body.3Deseret News. Glen Campbell Arrested After 2-Car Crash Police said his behavior swung between combative and congenial. In friendlier stretches, he sang “Rhinestone Cowboy” for the jailers. In angrier ones, he cursed at staff, kicked his cell door, and demanded to see the police chief, asking, “Do you know who I am? I’m Glen Campbell.”4WAFB. Singer Glen Campbell Arrested for Driving Drunk
A magistrate set bond at $2,000. Campbell was released early on November 25 and ordered to submit to alcohol and drug monitoring until his next court date.1CNN. Glen Campbell Arrested for DUI, Hit and Run, Assault
Campbell’s Reaction to the Photo
The booking image showed a rumpled, scowling man who looked nothing like the polished entertainer viewers knew from television and the concert stage. It ran everywhere. In a June 2004 interview with Access Hollywood, Campbell recalled his first look at it: “When I saw the mug shot, I said, ‘Who is that guy?'” He put the whole episode in spiritual terms, telling the interviewer, “Everybody says it’s the devil, but it isn’t, it’s God’s way of telling you to slow down.”5CBS News. Glen Campbell’s Unique DWI Excuse
The day after the arrest, he issued a short apology through his publicist. “Yesterday I was arrested and put in jail. Even at my age, I learned a valuable lesson. I apologize to my wife, my family, my friends and my fans.”6CBS News. Glen Campbell Apologizes
The Plea and Sentence
On May 10, 2004, Campbell appeared in Maricopa County Superior Court and pleaded guilty to extreme drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident. The aggravated assault charge was dropped as part of the plea deal.7Deseret News. Campbell Pleads Guilty to DUI, Leaving Scene
Judge John Buttrick sentenced him on June 15, 2004, to ten days in county jail, two years of probation, 75 hours of community service, and a $900 fine. Campbell was barred from drinking alcohol for the length of his probation. The judge granted a work furlough letting him leave jail daily from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. for professional obligations, including rehearsals. In court, he told the judge, “Believe you me, I think that’s the last you’ve seen of Glen Campbell putting alcohol in his veins.”8American Songwriter. On This Day in 2004, Glen Campbell Started His 10-Day Jail Sentence
Jail and the Tent City Concert
Campbell began the sentence on July 1, 2004, at the Maricopa County jail in Phoenix. He served two full days behind bars and spent the remaining eight on work release, returning each evening to sleep in a private indoor cell.9Los Angeles Times. Glen Campbell Interview
On his last Friday inside, July 9, 2004, Campbell put on a free concert for roughly 1,000 inmates at Tent City, the outdoor detention facility within the Estrella Jail Complex run by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. He performed on a flatbed truck decorated with hay bales, an eight-song, 30-minute set that included “Gentle on My Mind” (with an opening reworked to “Tent City, you’re gentle on my mind”), “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” and “Rhinestone Cowboy,” on which he led the inmates through the chorus. He called the audience “captive” and told them, “Sometimes it’s hard to take what you get.”10Today. Glen Campbell Gives Free Concert to Fellow Inmates
Rehab and a Long History with Alcohol
As part of his sentence, Campbell also spent a month at the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs.9Los Angeles Times. Glen Campbell Interview He was blunt about what he got out of it. “It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know,” he said in 2005. “You just gotta make up your mind. It’s mind over matter.”11Chicago Tribune. Glen Campbell’s Redemption Song He also told the Los Angeles Times, “I’d hate to see what happened to me happen to anybody else.”
This was not his first bout with substance abuse. In his 1994 autobiography, Rhinestone Cowboy, he wrote openly about years of heavy drinking, cocaine, and pill use, describing the stretch from about 1976 to 1980 as “the most chaotic period of my life.”12Roanoke Times. Glen Campbell Interview His relationship with singer Tanya Tucker in the early 1980s was turbulent; in 1981, police in Bossier City, Louisiana, were called to a hotel after Campbell was found causing a disturbance outside Tucker’s room, visibly intoxicated.13UPI. Country Cussin
After marrying his fourth wife, Kim Woollen, in 1982, he stayed sober for roughly 15 years. Kim later wrote in her memoir, Gentle On My Mind, that panic attacks were among the earliest warning signs that led him back to alcohol. The 2003 arrest was the loud finish to that relapse.14People. Glen Campbell’s Widow on His Alcoholism Battle
What the Mugshot Didn’t Show
Something else was happening that the booking photo could not reveal. Staff at Betty Ford noted during his 2004 stay that he had “cognitive issues,” an observation that gained weight years later. In 2011, Campbell announced publicly that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, following an earlier finding of mild cognitive impairment at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale.15Brain & Life. Still on the Line He died on August 8, 2017.16The Tennessean. Glen Campbell Estate Children Lawsuit