Jeremy Meeks, who earned the nickname the “Hot Felon” after his mugshot went viral in 2014, has recently spoken out about his internet fame on the Inside True Crime podcast. While in prison, he claims he was receiving about three-hundred letters per day filled with naked photos and money orders. However, some people would show up in person to try to meet him, which made his sentence much harder.
Meeks only had a limited number of visitor passes per week. Unfortunately, this meant that his family had trouble gaining access to him because random fans would appear and take up the spots.
Meeks explained that he would see strangers through the glass and tell the correctional officers he didn’t know them and didn’t want to speak with them, but they still counted those instances toward his two visits for the week.
“They're like, ‘Well, I'm still taking your visit. You can deny it, but I'm still going to take your visit for the week,'” he said. “So now my family can't come because I got fucking random people coming to see me and it was so frustrating.”
At the time, his son was young, so he told multiple people who kept visiting the prison: “My son is five years old and he doesn't understand why I'm not home and he needs to see me. I’m just going to ask that you please don't come back.”
Meeks served 13 months for felony gun possession. At the time, he was thirty years old. When the Stockton Police Department posted his now famous mugshot to their Facebook page to raise awareness of the crime, 21,000 likes and comments started pouring in, dubbing him the Hot Felon.
Meeks was released in 2016. Since then, he has written an autobiography called Model Citizen. In it, he speaks about his prison sentence and his battles with poverty and race.
