Jeremy Meeks has opened up about how the intense attention he received from admirers made prison life even harder, particularly when it kept him from seeing his family.
Even if his name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, many people will recognize Jeremy Meeks from the photograph that spread rapidly online throughout the mid-2010s.
In 2014, his mugshot exploded across social media and earned him the nickname ‘the world’s hottest felon’, turning him into an unexpected viral figure almost overnight.
At the time, he had been arrested by the Stockton Police Department and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.
More than a decade on, Meeks has spoken repeatedly about how that moment changed his life, and he continues to get questions about what it was like to become famous so suddenly.
While appearing on the Inside True Crime podcast, Meeks described a frustrating downside of the attention: strangers would show up to visit him in prison, and those visits would count against his limited weekly allowance.
He said: “I’m still a month into my mug shot going viral. This is so fresh that I’m still getting letters. I got random, random f–king people coming up to visit me.”
Meeks explained that he tried to alert officers that he didn’t know the visitors, but prison policies meant the time slot was treated as used whether he met them or not.
Because he was only permitted two visits per week, unexpected fans taking those spots sometimes meant his relatives couldn’t get in—something that hit especially hard when it affected time with his son.
Meeks explained: “They’re like, ‘Well, I’m still taking your visit. You can deny it, but I’m still gonna take your visit for the week.
“So now my family can’t come because I got f**king random people coming to see me and it was so frustrating.”
He also recalled confronting two people who repeatedly returned, asking them directly not to come back so he could prioritize his children.
He explained: “[I told them] ‘Hey, please don’t come back. I need to see my kids.
“’My son’s 5 years old and he doesn’t understand why I’m not home and he needs to see me. I’m just gonna ask that you please don’t come back.’”
“It was rough. And the only thing that made it rough is ‘cause my kids.”
Since leaving prison in 2016 after serving 13 months for felony gun possession, Meeks has spoken candidly about the unexpected celebrity that followed his case, and he later detailed his experiences in his 2024 memoir, Model Citizen.