Roseanne alum Tom Arnold, also the ex of titular star Roseanne Barr, is back in the headlines due to a new docuseries about his sister, Lori Arnold. The siblings grew up in Ottumwa, Iowa and were abandoned by their mother, Linda, as toddlers according to PEOPLE.
According to Lori Arnold, her mother was a “wild child” who did whatever she wanted to do. Tom Arnold adds that there “weren’t any rules” when living with their mother who they moved back in with as teenagers.
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All of this plays into Queen of Meth, currently streaming on Discovery+ in three parts that detail their early family life and Lori Arnold’s lost innocence that would end up with her becoming one of the “most prolific meth dealers” in the midwestern U.S., grossing over $200k a week. It continued through 1989 when the FBI caught up with her and seized $10 million worth of assets before ensuring she was put behind bars for convictions of drug trafficking and money laundering.
Spending over 15 years in prison, Arnold can now look back and tell her story through the series. She also has some noble goals with the docuseries according to PEOPLE. “I hear about all these young kids that are killing themselves, and OD-ing,” she tells the outlet. “And I feel guilty about it. I wish I could go back and do things differently.I can only hope that others can learn through my mistakes.”
But the Lori Arnold who appears in the series and lived through the pre-prison days would likely speak differently. According to The Hindu, Arnold had no qualms about the life she was leading. “You know, I was never scared, If anything, I felt empowered, respected, feared, and you feed into that kind of stuff,” Arnold says. “I was always a bad—, I like being a bad—. I liked running s—. I wanted people to look up to me, be scared of me. Selling came easy to me – I was the brains, and Floyd [my partner] was the muscle. But I would say that I’m more addicted to the power. That fed my ego. I want people to look up to me, respect me.”
Tom Arnold is pleased with how the documentary turned out for his sister. Any fears he had were put to rest and he has even revealed that before now the story has only existed in book form, something that won’t go public anytime soon but does feature in the show.
“I told her, ‘you need to just write a book about yourself.’ Anytime you write, there’s something very spiritual about that. And I thought, with my sister being in prison for a long time, she could just get up and write something about her life. So she wrote a very thick book not to be published or anything and they do use some of that in this documentary series.”
Queen of Meth can be streamed on Discovery+ and premiered on May 7. The three part series is perfect for a free trial of the service if you’ve yet to take advantage.
