(Reuters) – Grammy-winning singer Fiona Apple spent the night in a Texas jail after being arrested late Wednesday on a felony drug possession charge at a border patrol checkpoint where her tour bus was searched, local officials said.
Apple, 35, was taken into custody in Sierra Blanca, the same small west Texas town where authorities previously nabbed singer Willie Nelson, rapper Snoop Dogg and “The Social Network” actor Armie Hammer on drug charges.
The singer-songwriter had 4 grams of hashish, a form of cannabis, in her possession, said Rusty Fleming, spokesman for the sheriff in Hudspeth County, of which Sierra Blanca is the county seat.
Fleming said there were seven other people on the bus, but Apple admitted the drugs were hers and everybody else was allowed to drive on. She was respectful and calm, though became concerned when she learned she would have to stay in jail overnight, he said.
She was released after posting bail on Thursday, and her jail stay passed “without incident,” Fleming said.
Asked why so many celebrities have been arrested in the town on Interstate 10, County Judge Becky Dean-Walker said, “because they come through here with stuff they shouldn’t have”.
The Interstate 10 highway runs coast-to-coast across the United States between California and Florida.
Apple, who won a Grammy for the single “Criminal” off her 1996 debut album “Tidal,” was due to perform in Austin on Thursday night but the venue’s website said the show was postponed.
A spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment.
(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis and Corrie MacLaggan; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Alden Bentley, Andrew Hay and Lisa Shumaker)
