Campbell’s Hot Water

The Pete Doherty of the modeling world, Naomi Campbell has been contending with self-inflicted legal woes for over a decade now. Following the news today that the mannequin won’t face assault charges against her chauffeur, we can’t help but marvel at the supe’s super-human ability to avoid jail time. Let’s take a moment and look back at Campbell’s criminal hijinks…

2000
In a precursor to 2005’s infamous Blackberry scuffle, Campbell pleaded guilty to assaulting her beleaguered assistant with an old-fashioned hotel land line and threatening to throw her out of a moving car. The model was cleared after expressing remorse, paying her victim an undisclosed sum and going into anger management.

2005
How many assistants can lay claim to abuse across three continents? More importantly, who in the hell would agree to be Campbell’s PA in the first place? So it went for the model’s then-assistant, who accused Campbell of beating her upside the head with the now-notorious PDA. Campbell denied any wrongdoing and countersued in 2006. Later that year, an Italian actress claimed the model left her bloodied and bruised after a skirmish in a Rome hotel. The alleged motive? Homegirl was spotted in the same dress as Campbell.

2006
Campbell’s most litigious year to date entailed two arrests for (what else?) assault, this time against her housekeeper with a bedazzled phone and an alleged attack on an unidentified woman. That fall, another former employee came forward seeking unspecified damages, calling Campbell a “violent super-bigot.” The model skipped her September court date, leading the judge to threaten her with up to seven years in jail.

2007
After pleading guilty to attack-with-a-crystal-encrusted-cell in January, Campbell was sentenced to five days of community service at New York’s Department of Sanitation. She said she “met a lot of great people doing community service, lots of polite, great, wonderful people…that were afraid to talk to me but I spoke to them anyway.” How sweet. Steven Klein faux-documented the sentence in a memorable photo spread and video.

2008
Proving kindness isn’t contagious, Campbell moved onto bigger and better victims with her arrest at Heathrow less than a year later. After getting into it with a police officer over lost luggage, the model was banned from British Airways and charged with no fewer than five counts of assault. Campbell pleaded guilty to four of them, and was ultimately sentenced to 200 hours of community service.

2010
On March 2, after a year of keeping her dangerous diva antics on the DL, Campbell was back in fighting form with an attack on her New York chauffeur en route to a photo shoot. The fight allegedly resulted from brooding over her Russian billionaire BF and some bad memories—namely (and rather bizarrely) the driver’s inability to pick up the phone when Campbell called him over a year ago. NYPD issued a “harassment report,” declining to make formal charges. The supe may have dodged another bullet for now, but as long as she’s around men, maids and mobile phones, expect more shenanigans.

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