US – Sunday, March 21
Published 18:01, September the 27th, 2009
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More like "Dancing with the" thugs, right? Nah, Aaron Carter just likes to speed a smoke dope.More like "Dancing with the" thugs, right? Nah, Aaron Carter just likes to speed a smoke dope.
 

Pressing charges ‘with the Stars’

This season of ‘DWTS’ includes quite a few contestants who’ve had run ins with the law, why they are doing the show, and why another has signed on

‘DWTS’ rap sheet

Aaron Carter
Compared to dating Lindsay Lohan and attempting a hip-hop career, Carter’s 2008 arrest for a small amount of marijuana in his car doesn’t seem all the bad.

Tom Delay
Delay’s infamously smug mug shots are courtesy of his 2005 conspiracy and money laundering charges.

Macy Gray
The singer was almost arrested for swearing onstage in Barbados in 2007 — which is illegal there — but avoided it with a public apology.

Michael Irvin
The former NFL star’s most recent arrest in 2005 was for speeding, but drug paraphernalia was found in his car.

Kelly Osbourne
Last January, Osbourne was arrested for a 2008 incident, during which she slapped a journalist who insulted her now-fiancé, Luke Worrall.

Louie Vito
It seems the good country of New Zealand cleared this snowboarder’s name of marijuana possession in exchange for a donation to charity this summer, but the description released by the local newspapers certainly seemed to implicate Vito and fellow boarder Danny Kass.

 

It’s no surprise that most celebrity reality show contestants aren’t at the top of their game. But while this season of “Dancing With the Stars” has the expected former teen idols (Donny Osmond), retired teen witches (Melissa Joan Hart), and no longer super models (Kathy Ireland) covered, the show also has its share of contestants with criminal records.

In fact, six out of 16 of the new cast have had brushes with the law, ranging from former House Majority Leader Tom Delay’s disastrous 2005 money laundering scandal to Aaron Carter’s relatively harmless — but still not very image-friendly — 2008 arrest for speeding and possession of marijuana.

So can these guys expect a little boost in their image along with tighter abs? According to Andy Dehnart, TV critic and editor of RealityBlurred.com, it really depends on the star. “Their behavior has the power to heal a damaged image, or do the exact opposite,” he says of the “less-filtered” portrayal. “That can lead to new opportunities and a reinvigorated career, or just a temporary bit of attention.”

Somehow, we think Kelly Osbourne is open to either.

But the only thing you’re going to dig up on Mya is recent charity work, so we caught up with the singer about why she wanted to compete this season.  “It’s so much fun and such a professional program — the choreography, the costumes, the trainers. Why would someone not want to do it?” she reasons. But the free five-hours-a-day workouts weren’t so bad, either: “We all look a lot better than we did three weeks ago,” she admits of her castmates.


TUNE IN
‘Dancing with the Stars’ airs tonight at 8 on ABC.


Monica Weymouth
 
 
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