That Time Tim Allen Almost Got Life in Prison

Tim Allen’s path to success was not without its hiccups. He started having problems after his father died in a car accident in 1964. Allen was just 11 at the time and had already started drinking. Before long, he found himself robbing people’s houses, taking everything he could get his hands on. By the time he reached his 20s, he was dealing cocaine and continued to do so even after he set out to be a comedian.

That all came to an end on October 2, 1978, when Allen, now 25 years old, set up a $42,000 drug deal at the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport in Michigan. He’d gotten the idea to put the drugs in a locker and give the buyer the key after seeing it done on television. However, when the man he gave the key to opened the locker and found over 650 grams of cocaine inside, Allen didn’t get the big payday he’d been hoping for. The next thing he knew, he had a gun in his face and was being surrounded by the cops.

Allen found out that the guy he worked the deal out with was an undercover police officer. Apparently, he’d been keeping an eye on Allen for months leading up to the arrest. To make matters worse, Michigan legislators had recently passed a harsh new law called the “650-lifer law.” In a nutshell, anyone convicted of selling the amount of cocaine Allen had just gotten caught with was facing a life sentence, without the possibility of parole.

He was charged with drug trafficking and pleaded guilty. He also gave the police the names of several other drug dealers that he knew. That way, his sentencing would be in federal court instead of state court, and the new law wouldn’t come into play. Luckily for him, Allen served just two years of a three-to-seven-year sentence and was released in 1981.

A total of 20 people were indicted based on the information Allen shared with authorities. That included four high-level dealers, all of whom ended up behind bars. Allen, on the other hand, went on to become a major star and later said his experience in prison helped make him a better comic. He even managed to leave an impression on the judge, who told him that he was expecting him to “be a very successful comedian.” Needless to say, he more than lived up to those expectations.