Film director Quentin Tarantino has for years told the story of how he was jailed for eight days for unpaid traffic tickets, but the
New York Post says a search of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department records finds no proof to back him up.
"A check of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department jail records revealed no evidence that Mr. Tarantino was ever incarcerated in our jail system," Capt. Christopher Reed of the sheriff's office told the Post.
Tarantino first told the story as he was directing such gritty films and "Pulp Fiction" and "Natural Born Killers," but he recently brought it up again while defending himself after calling some police officers "murderers" while speaking out against police killings at a New York City rally just days after an NYPD officer was shot to death by a suspect.
"Back when I was in my 20s and broke, I was a little scared of the cops, all right?" Tarantino said on a recent episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher." "And oftentimes, I had warrants out on me for traffic stuff that I never took care of and everything . . . I’d get stopped, and I’d have to do eight days in county jail."
In the past, Tarantino has sometimes said he was jailed once, but on a 1997 "Tonight Show" appearance he told Jay Leno it happened three times.
He also has varied his tale on whether he was able to use the time in lockup to his advantage while writing screenplays.
"At first, I thought, 'Wow, I’m going to pick up some great dialogue in here,' Tarantino told Paris Voice in 1992. "But then you realize what a waste of time it is. They treat you like an animal, and nobody wants to be treated like an animal."
But in 2009, he told the British website Metro.co.uk, "I was kind of excited about going to jail the first time and I learned some great dialogue."
So far, Tarantino has declined to speak to the Post about its story.
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