Glee star Mark Salling has been arrested on allegations of possessing child pornography. The 33-year-old actor and singer is best known for his role as Noah “Puck” Puckerman on FOX’s musical comedy.
The report, from TMZ, goes on to note that the Los Angeles Police Department’s Crimes Against Children Task Force got a warrant and served it Tuesday morning. The department searched Mark Salling’s home computer and, supposedly, found hundreds of illegal images. Salling was then taken to the police station for booking on the charges. The TMZ story adds that they have a source that says the police were tipped off by an ex-girlfriend of Salling’s, and that they investigated the claims before obtaining the warrant, to make sure this wasn’t a revenge allegation from his former girlfriend.
Blech. Where do we even start with news like this? Obviously, Mark Salling hasn’t been formally charged yet, and, even if he had been, he hasn’t come anywhere near being found guilty. Right now these are just allegations, but if this is found to be true, it’ll be sad for a variety of reasons. It’s certainly sad for the poor kids who’ve been abused, but it’s also sad for Salling if this turns out to have been a huge mistake on the part of the police.
We haven’t heard much from Mark Salling since his six-year tenure on Glee ended when the show did earlier this year. Salling appeared on 98 out of 121 of the show’s episodes, proving that his bratty, slutty footballer turned song and dance man was one of the most popular characters on the series. He was able to turn his success on the show into a shot at a recording career, and released a solo CD in 2010, Pipe Dreams, on his own label.
This isn’t Mark Salling’s first time getting into some legal trouble, though it is the biggest pot of legal hot water the actor has encountered. In 2013 his ex-girlfriend, Roxanne Gorzela, sued him for sexual battery over a 2011 incident where she alleged that he forced unprotected sex on her. She later also claimed that he pushed her to the ground when she confronted him about the incident, causing her to severely injure her knees. That case was settled in the middle of the trial, with the sexual battery claim being dropped and Salling admitting to negligence in Gorzela’s fall.
As we all know, sometimes the mere allegation of criminal activity is all it takes for a potential star to become mired in a scandal that they can never quite recover from. Glee fans are probably in complete shock today, and the show’s fun-loving legacy has already taken a hit from the allegations, as a Google search for “Glee” brings his arrest up as the first item.
While the last thing most talented, hard-working people would want is to end up having their talents ignored by the public because of sudden infamy, that doesn’t mean it’s not destined to happen sometimes. And, it certainly seems to be true that if you have any dirty laundry hiding under your bed at all, fame is sure to be the one thing that will help expose it all to the public at large. Here’s hoping that this is all just a horrible misunderstanding, and that we Glee fans can enjoy Puck’s antics forever and never feel wrong about doing so.
