Reality TV star told police her lips ‘too big’ for breathalyser
A REALITY television personality who failed a roadside breath test told police her surgically enhanced lips were too big for her to blow into a breathalyser.
Scarlett Harrison was found to be over the legal limit when she was stopped while driving around Manchester city centre after drinking.
But when she was asked to give a breath sample at a police station, the 20-year-old – who appeared in the MTV show Ex on the Beach – complained her collagen implants made it too “difficult” for her to get her mouth around the tube.
She attempted four times to blow into the machine before telling officers, “my lips are too big”, leading to her being charged with failing to provide a breath sample.
At Manchester magistrates’ court, Harrison initially pleaded not guilty, claiming she could not give a sample for “medical reasons”. But on the day of her trial she changed her plea to guilty and was banned from driving for 16 months. She has since sold her car.
The court heard that Harrison, who lives at her family’s luxury home in Bramhall, Cheshire, was pulled over near Piccadilly station on June 20 after she had a row with a male friend with whom she had been drinking.
Matthew Wallace, Harrison’s defence lawyer, said: “She is somebody who has suffered with anxiety in the past. She has collagen implants in her lips, which caused her due difficulty in forming a seal around the tube.”
Harrison was fined £160 plus £150 in court costs. She was offered a place on a drink-driver rehabilitation course.
Viewers of the nine series of the “reality” TV programme Ex on the Beach may remember Scarlett Harrison. She’s the one with bee-stung lips. Well, not necessarily the only one, but her lips, of which a whole hive of bees might be proud, are germane, for when Miss Harrison was invited to breathe into an “intoximeter”, as police like to call it, she couldn’t quite manage it. “My lips are too big,” she said. This had not prevented her earlier taking on board a couple of pink gins, but perhaps the mechanics don’t work equally in both directions. In any case, admirers might think twice before getting collagen implants like hers, for Miss Harrison was banned from driving for 16 months. This will allow time to rehearse the breathalyser routine for a rainy day. As Lauren Bacall said: “You just put your lips together and blow.”