Chris Brown’s mug shot says so much
Chris Brown has been arrested again, and he looks bad. It’s a particular kind of bad. The singer does not look like a celebrity fresh from a chaotic night of partying — the kind of TMZ leading man whose physical state leaves fans both stunned and concerned. He doesn’t call to mind a heartthrob in the throes of acute immaturity. Nor a tough guy with a swagger as fierce as his anger-management problem.
He looks vacant and sad. But mostly he looks resigned.
Fresh from the stage of his current concert tour, Brown was booked last Thursday in the Palm Beach County Jail on a felony battery charge from a 2017 incident in which he allegedly attacked a photographer in Tampa.
The sad trajectory of his life — astonishing talent, youthful fame, narcissism, misogyny, domestic violence, multiple assault allegations and public temper tantrums — was wholly captured in a single sorry mug shot. He not only is stripped bare of the accoutrements of celebrity, he is devoid of distinction, standing in front of an institutional green backdrop with his corner-barbershop haircut and his black crew neck. No jewelry. No fashion. Even his neck tattoo is a blur of murky ink. Brown doesn’t look defiant or angry; he simply looks tired. He looks a decade older than his 29 tumultuous years.
Every mug shot has something to say. Most speak volumes. This one communicates like a long, mournful sigh.
Historically, the mug shots of the famous have a tendency to shock. Sometimes they upend a studiously maintained persona, and fans are left feeling as though some awful truth has been revealed, a truth that might always have been there but was camouflaged by stylistic gloss or obscured by a wall of publicists. The revelation leaves us disappointed and sad.
When James Brown was arrested in 2004, his startling