Actor Nicolas Cage is no angel. We all know that. But when he's been drinking, Nicolas Cage can turn into a raging monster. And that's just what happened in New Orleans in April of 2011.
The Ghost Rider and National Treasure star was in New Orleans making a film. He and his third wife, Alice Kim had rented a place on Dumaine Street in the heart of the French Quarter. Things seemed fine. Then early on Saturday, April 16th, the couple was seen arguing in front of a house on Dumaine Street. Seems they disagreed about the address of the place they had rented. It got so heated that people were stopping to watch the little scene play out. Cage was obviously roaring drunk and Alice was giving as good as she got and not backing down.
Well, the next thing you know, Cage is pulling on Kim's arm. When she resisted, he started hitting parked cars. The cops arrived, arrested him, and took him to the slammer. Bail was set at $11,000.
The story went viral really fast. Then early in the afternoon of Saturday the 16th, another shockwave hit when the news broke that Duane "Dog" Chapman of Dog the Bounty Hunter fame had posted bail for Cage. Dog and Nicolas Cage? What an unlikely pairing that was.
What's going on? Let's have a look and see.
The Incident
The whole thing started when Cage insisted that Alice was wrong about the address of the house they had rented on Dumaine Street.
Dumaine Street resident Peter Bennet later said: “Apparently he had mistaken the house of my neighbors for the other house up the block that he is actually renting. His wife was trying to persuade him from disturbing the elderly couple who do in fact live in that house.”
An obviously drunk Cage was tugging and pulling Alice towards the wrong house. She wouldn't give in. Then he started banging on cars.
When the cops rolled up, some reports say he tried to climb into the back passenger seat of the cop car.
Bennett put in: "But the cop got out, walked around, and Cage ran a block south toward the river, where he tried to get into a cab. There was a woman outside with a baby in her arms shouting, 'Please don't hurt us.'"
It was like a scene in a movie!
When the police finally caught up with him, the millionaire actor reportedly taunted them, saying, "Why don't you just arrest me?"
So they did, there and then, charging him with domestic abuse and disturbing the peace. He was, the police later said, "heavily intoxicated".
He went straight to jail and bail was soon set at $10,000 for the domestic abuse charge and $1,000 for the disturbing the peace charge.
The news went viral pretty quickly. That's probably how Dog, then living in Hawaii, twigged to what was going on.
Everybody went for their 15 of fame, with another prisoner who was in the holding area of the jail with Cage saying that the actor was very drunk. According to People, the inmate also said: “He wasn’t in a cell. He was behind the counter with all the other officers.” He may have been drunk and disorderly, but he was Nicolas Cage.
Enter Dog The Bounty Hunter
By early afternoon on the 16th, Cage was a free man once more. And the person behind it was none other than Duane "Dog" Chapman. And he did it from the comfort of his home in Hawaii. How on earth? He used a local New Orleans firm called Blair's Bail Bonds as an intermediary.
Now, why on earth would Dog do that? Apparently, he and Cage have never even met. Well, let's go back to the 15 of fame premise. At the time Chapman's reality TV show Dog the Bounty Hunter was in trouble, its ratings sinking fast. In fact, the show was canceled in 2012.
So Dog jumped in and paid the bail. Then his wife Beth tweeted her little heart out about it all.
Moments after Cage walked free, the story of how Dog had saved his bacon went viral on the Internet, thanks to Beth and her twinkling fingers.
Dog played the gentleman, saying he was a big fan of Cage and was glad to help.
He refused further comment, asking the media to respect his client's privacy. Right. A little late for that. To finish up, he got a plug in for Dog the Bounty Hunter.
So what if it cost him $11,000 plus fees? With the publicity he got, it was well worth it. The additional media attention certainly didn't help Nicolas Cage. And Dog probably knew that. Did he care? In a word, no.
By the way, the charges against Cage were quietly dropped in early May.