Comedian Artie Lange has been arrested again this week amid ongoing struggles with addiction.
Lange has always been up front about his issues with substance abuse and addiction. The comedian was arrested again on Tuesday, according to a report by The Daily Mail, for violating his probation. Authorities declined to specify how Lang had broken the terms of his 4-year-long probation, but announced that taking him into custody was a high priority.
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“Artie Lange’s drug problems aren’t at the top of our list, but I think he’ll be in custody by morning,” a police source told Daily News on Monday.
Lange is best-known for his long tenure on The Howard Stern Show, where he made merciless quips along with the shock-jock host. He was reportedly staying in an addiction center called Freedom House in Clinton, New Jersey until his latest arrest.
Police said that Lange has been “non-compliant with his drug court requirements,” but said that legal restrictions prevented them from sharing more details about his latest arrest. Two new mugshots of Lange were released, showing the permanent damage of his collapses nose caused by three decades of drug abuse.
Lange’s current probation period stems from an arrest in March of 2017. At the time, he was pulled over on the Garden State Parkway, and police discovered “81 decks of heroin” in his luxury Range Rover. The comedian reportedly had “a bag of heroin in his lap with a straw” as well.
Even since then, this is not Lange’s first struggle to keep up with court-ordered requirements. In January of this year he was arrested when he tested positive for cocaine during a court-mandated drug tested. The same happened again in March, at which point he spent six days in Jail and was then ordered to undergo six months of drug treatment. That landed him in Freedom House until his arrest on Tuesday.
The 51-year-old is often self-effacing and even fatalistic when discussing his history of addiction. In recent years he has starred on HBO’s Crashing, a semi-autobiographical show about comedian Pete Holmes trying to make it in New York City’s stand-up scene. Lange plays himself, taking Holmes on as a mentor, and battles addiction on the show as well.
This year, in Season 3 of Crashing, Lange returned to the show as nihilistic as ever. The comedian sported his collapses nose in the show, although they never made any mention of it on screen. Crashing was canceled following this season, but all 30 episodes are currently streaming on HBO Go and HBO Now.
