Actor Hopper Penn, the son of the movie star Sean Penn, has been booked for drug possession in Nebraska.

Penn, 24, was riding in a 1992 Volvo driven by 26-year-old actress Uma von Wittkamp when a Nebraska State Patrol officer pulled them over for reportedly failing to signal.

The responding officer allegedly “detected drug activity” and determined that there was probable cause to proceed with a search of the Volvo. Between Penn and von Wittkamp, the officer reportedly discovered 14 grams of marijuana, four pills of amphetamine and three grams of illicit mushrooms.

Authorities pinned Penn with possession of the mushrooms and marijuana, and von Wittkamp was charged for the pills as well as the mushrooms. Both were released on bond the next day.

The incident may mark a setback for Penn, who has been open about his struggles with meth.

In an interview with Evening Standard Magazine, he retraced his troubles to his father’s divorce from his mother, House of Cards star Robin Wright, when he was 14 years old.

“I was young and thinking: ‘Are you just fucking with me and my sister?’ I mean, it was not the best. It was tough, talking to them,” he recounted. “Because they were both pretty broken too, I think.”

Following the divorce, Penn had to split time between the homes of his mother and father. During this difficult time, his problems were compounded by a skateboarding accident that forced Penn to undergo brain surgery.

Afterwards, Penn says, he fell into the wrong crowd and started smoking pot before moving on to harder drugs. “I was doing a lot of stuff but meth was the main one that brought me down,” Penn said.

He credits his father’s tough love for getting him clean.

“I went to rehab because I woke up in a hospital and my dad said, ‘Rehab? Or bus bench?’ I was like, ‘I’ll take the bed,’” he said. “Thank God I got out of that because that was the worst time in my life. Because it’s not fun when it gets to a point where you just need it.”

Penn eventually got things together, making movies and modeling. Whether this incident is a derailment of his recovery remains to be seen.

Disqus comments