Robert Downey Jr. Sent To Jail Actor Gets 6-Month Term For Violating His Probation

Robert Downey Jr.’s next two movies will be out before he is.

After a string of drug arrests and second chances, the Oscar-nominated actor was slapped in handcuffs and led off to jail for six months Monday for violating probation by failing to stay clean and sober.

“I am running out of ways to rehabilitate you,” said Municipal Judge Lawrence Mira, who in the past avoided giving Downey jail time and altered the actor’s probation schedule so he could keep making movies.

“I’m going to incarcerate you, and I’m going to incarcerate you in a way that’s very unpleasant for you,” the judge said. “I don’t care who you are. What I care about is that there is a life to be saved from drugs.”

Downey, who received an Academy Award nomination for his starring role in the 1992 film “Chaplin,” had been sentenced last year to three years’ probation after pleading no contest to drug and weapons charges. He spent about three months in a live-in rehabilitation program.

But the probation was revoked on Oct. 17, when his drug counselor told authorities that the 32-year-old Downey had used drugs and alcohol in September. The judge could have given Downey to up to three years in prison or allowed him to remain free in a rehab program.

Dressed in a suit with his hair neatly combed, the actor pleaded for mercy, explaining he had been addicted to drugs since he was 8.

Downey’s movie career had been thriving. His film “One Night Stand” came out last month, and he has two movies coming out in January: “The Gingerbread Man” and “Two Girls and a Guy.”