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Jeremy Meeks—who earned the nickname "Hot Felon” after his mugshot went viral in 2014—revealed that his family couldn't visit him in prison because strangers kept using his visitor passes.
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Jeremy Meeks is sharing one of the downsides of sudden fame.
The “Hot Felon”—who became well known after his mugshot went viral in 2014—recalled how his family had trouble visiting him in prison because “random” people kept using his limited number of visitor passes.
“I’m still a month into my mug shot going viral. This is so fresh that I'm still getting letters,” Jeremy said on the Inside True Crime podcast March 22. “I got random, random f--king people coming up to visit me.”
The 42-year-old explained that he would deny them “before I even walk up the stairs into the section” as he could see them through the glasses, telling officers, “‘I don't know who that person is.’”
But he said the Sacramento County Jail where he was incarcerated was “very strict” and still counted the unwanted visits as part of his two per week.
“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,'” Jeremy said. “So now my family can't come because I got f--king random people coming to see me and it was so frustrating."
And all of it was especially difficult as it meant that Jeremy couldn’t see his son Jeremy Jr., 17, who he shares with ex-wife Melissa Meeks.
The model recalled telling two people who came back several times, “‘Hey, please don't come back. I need to see my kids.’”
Andreas Rentz/Getty Images
“’My son's 5 years old and he doesn't understand why I'm not home and he needs to see me,’” he explained to them, adding, “’I’m just gonna ask that you please don't come back.’”
“It was rough,” Jeremy admitted. “And the only thing that made it rough is ‘cause my kids.”
Since his release from prison in 2016 after serving 13 months for felony gun possession, Jeremy—who is also dad to son Jayden, 7, with ex Chloe Green—has been candid about how the experience and his viral fame changed his life and gave him new opportunities—and inspired him to write his 2024 memoir, Model Citizen.
Momodu Mansaray/Getty Images
“I’m in a place in my life where I am extremely vulnerable and want to tell my story,” he explained in a statement to People in 2024, “and hope that people can connect to it and understand how I came to be in the place that I'm at in my life.”
The book detailed his prison sentence and, according to its synopsis, told a “personal story about his battles with gang violence, poverty, race and the inevitable life-changing moments that turned his world around.”
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