Jeremy Meeks, aka Hot Mugshot Guy, had been on his way to the launch of his very first cover shoot for a UK magazine, when he was reportedly deported from the UK.
Photos from the shoot were set to be unveiled at an event with Meeks’ agency SUPA models and Man About Town magazine, but as Meeks was unable to attend the images have now been made available ahead of the issue’s launch on Thursday 27 April.
The photographer Steven Klein likened Meeks to Marilyn Monroe, due to his “vulnerable openness that had endured hard times and which brought qualities of depth and aspiration, even innocence, to Jeremy’s physical beauty”.
In the accompanying feature, writer Laura Albert explores how Meeks’ mugshot became such a phenomenon and discusses the “belief that if you are beautiful, you are protected,” and how this doesn’t apply to Meeks.
“I heard all my life, you’re so handsome, you have the most beautiful eyes, and I heard it a hundred times a day. To where I would not even pay no mind to it,” Meeks told Albert.
“It didn’t fix it then, I still had a father in prison doing life. I still had a heroin addict mother and me and my brother and sisters struggling through life’s tribulations. I just knew as a kid I had a lot of pent-up anger.”
It seems Meeks’ time as a model may be short lived - and not because of issues such as his Heathrow tribulations, but because he’s now taking acting classes in LA and has discovered a love of drama.
Meeks' Management: Supa Model Management and Carl Marshall PR