Comedian and actor Andy Dick has had a long history of legal troubles. And whenever you think he might have gotten his act together, he seems to find his way back to getting arrested. In October of 2022, this sad trend continued, as Dick was arrested yet again. Stay tuned, as Facts Verse presents: Andy Dick’s Career is Done for Good After These Scandals
Stealing Power Tools
On October 13th, 2022, Andy Dick was arrested in Santa Barbara County for allegedly stealing power tools. And it wasn’t a matter of shoplifting from a local hardware store. Dick was apparently caught stealing from a private residence. According to the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s office, local police received a call on the 13th that a home burglary was in process. After arriving on the scene, officers found Dick attempting to steal power tools from the property. The homeowner confirmed that Dick was there without permission.
Dick was charged with first-degree residential burglary. His bail was set at $50,000, and reportedly remained behind bars as of the next week. He plead not guilty to the crime, and the public defender assigned to representing Dick has made statements saying that facts will come to light that exonerates his client.
Andy’s Early Years
Andy Dick has been a performing comedian for decades. When he graduated from high school in 1985, he immediately joined The Second City comedy troupe, and began to quickly develop his comedic persona as well as stand up and improv skills. He was a part of The Second City school and troupe for much of the latter half of that decade. Yet interestingly, the theater doesn’t list him as being one of their prominent alums. Perhaps this is due to all the legal troubles he’s had over the years.
In 1988, he moved to LA and started audition for roles in town. Things moved slowly for him in those early years, but by 1992 he had received his first big break. This was when he was cast in the now cult favorite sketch show, The Ben Stiller Show. It was a brief but seminal show on MTV that was filled with big name creators like Stiller and Jud Apatow, as well as now-legendary performers like Janeane Garofalo and Bob Odenkirk. Sadly, the show only lasted a total of 13 episodes. And yet, the popularity of the show around Hollywood made it so that Dick was now a known comedic entity in town. He spent the next couple years appearing in a variety of films and TV shows, including another Ben Stiller creation, Reality Bites. On TV he has small roles on The Nanny, Get Smart, and on late night via The Late Show with David Letterman. His next big break came when he was cast as a regular on the sitcom NewsRadio on NBC.
Addiction issues and deaths around him
Andy had issues with alcohol and drugs from an early age. In fact, by the time he was starring on NewsRadio, he was already attempting sobriety. Sadly, one event that immediately put this to a halt was the death of his AA sponsor. And not only was his sponsor an important person in his life, it was an important person in the history of comedy: Chris Farley. When Farley died of an overdose in December of 1997, it was a devastating blow to the world of comedy and entertainment, as well as to Andy personally. As a result, he started using again. And almost immediately, this behavior started a domino effect of tragedy.
Dick attended a party at the house of legendary comedic performer Phil Hartman. Phil was a long time SNL vet who costarred on NewsRadio with Dick. Hartman’s wife Brynn was at the party and, like Dick and Farley, was a long time addict. But she’d been sober for 10 years at that point. Perhaps taking a cue from Dick’s newfound drug use, Brynn decided that night to do cocaine. She got high on cocaine that Dick provided to her. This set off a chain reaction for Brynn that tragically led her to murder her husband and commit suicide 5 months later. She was reportedly high on cocaine when she committed those acts as well.
The tragedies surrounding Dick didn’t stop there. Less then a year later, he went to Las Vegas with a friend – actor David Strickland. The two set about partying it up at an assortment of strip clubs. But for unknown reasons, Strickland wound up hanging himself in his motel room.
Feud with Jon Lovitz
When SNL alum Jon Lovitz replaced Phil Hartman on NewsRadio, he and Andy didn’t get along. And, for a variety of reasons, the show took a downfall after Hartman’s death. Once Lovitz joined, the show was cancelled only a season later. But Dick and Lovitz’s relationship was toxic throughout that short period. According to Lovitz, Dick approached him as they were filming one of the final episodes and told him he shouldn’t be there. Lovitz countered by saying to Dick that it was his fault that he was there in the first place. He pointed to the fact that Dick gave Brynn Hartman the cocaine that got her off the wagon, and that ultimately let to her heinous crimes against her husband and herself. Lovitz says he told Dick, “I wouldn’t be here now if you hadn’t given Brynn that cocaine.”
Their feud didn’t end there. At one point, Dick apparently threatened Lovitz in a way, telling the comedian that he was putting what he called the “Phil Hartman hex” on him. That meant Lovitz was going to be the next comedian from that era to die. Lovitz later relayed that while he was shocked at the statement, and was tempted to punch Dick in the face, he resisted. But in 2007, they had an altercation at the legendary Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. The bar’s owner reportedly had to get security to break the two up, as Lovitz smashed Dick’s head into the railing of the bar. When Lovitz was later asked about it, he admitted to losing his temper. He said that when he ran into Dick, he was expecting an apology about the “Hartman hex” comment. At first, Dick claimed not to know what he was talking about. But then Dick apparently copped to having said it, but blamed it on the fact that Lovitz had publicly blamed him for Phil Hartman’s death. Apparently, he then asked Lovitz to be in his next movie. This was all too much for Lovitz, who decided to get violent with Dick until security broke it up.
His many legal troubles
It didn’t take long for Dick to begin getting into legal troubles following the deaths of Farley and Hartman. His drug and alcohol usage ramped up, and in 1999 was arrested for felony cocaine possession as well as two misdemeanors related to cannabis possession. This happened after he wrapped his car around a telephone pole in May of that year. Dick got the charges dropped after agreeing to do a drug diversion program for a year and a half.
The next decade or so saw relatively few major issues in Dick life, at least as pertains to drug and alcohol abuse. He stayed clean enough to create and star in The Andy Dick Show on MTV. That ran for three seasons, beginning in 2001. It was a sketch comedy send up of pop culture, and Dick’s star began to rise again. But sadly, Dick’s troubles with the law and his bad behavior ticked right back up. In 2004, he was arrested for indecent exposure. It happened after he mooned several people eating in a McDonalds. And while it might seem overkill to arrest someone for what is basically a kids prank, it was the beginning of some troubling behavior in that realm for Andy. In 2005, he was one of the performers on the Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson. Dick, seemingly intoxicated, grabbed Anderson’s breasts as he made a joke about breast augmentation. At the same event, he also attempted to touch Courtney Love, but she quickly retaliated and slapped his face. He also mimed oral sex on Pamela Anderson’s husband at the time, Tommy Lee. It was truly a regrettable night for Dick and those around him.
But this wasn’t a one time thing for Andy. While on Jimmy Kimmel Live! two years later, he groped the leg of Ivanka Trump. This caused his removal from the show.
Further Issues
Dick continued to have issues with the law and with drug and alcohol usage. In 2008, he was standing outside a Buffalo Wild Wings, and pulled down the shirt and bra of a 17-year-old. For that he was arrested for sexual battery, as well as drug possession. He didn’t serve any jail time, however, as his sentence was reduced to a misdemeanor and he was given probation for three years.
But he was back at it in the years following. He groped a couple of people in a bar in Virginia in 2010, and was arrested for sexual abuse. Somehow he again managed to avoid jail time, and ended up back in a drug diversion program.
And in 2011, he was involved in a variety of inappropriate behaviors. He reportedly stalked and groped several porn actors at the AVN Awards, and he exposed himself at the Newport Film Festival. He even went off on an antisemitic rant against radio host Howard Stern. And recent years have brought even more incidents from Dick, including being arrested for felony sexual battery last year, and being arrested for hitting his boyfriend with a bottle in 2021.
Clearly Andy Dick is a talented yet troubled comedic actor. We can only hope he manages to get clean again and stay out of trouble. Now it’s time to hear from you. Do you think the fact that he’s gotten off easy over the years has meant he was more likely to behave inappropriately over the years? Let us know in the comments section below!
