The actor set the record straight about how he was actually forced to give up his jail cell for the 'Avengers' star back in the day.
Leslie Jordan and Robert Downey Jr. go way back.
During Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen's after-show on Tuesday, the Will & Grace actor was asked by a fan to share the story of how he and the Avengers star "were stuck in the same jail cell together."
Sharing the "truncated version," Jordan explained that in 1997 he was sentenced to 120 days in prison “for several indiscretions [he’d] really rather not describe right now." He said that he hasn't "had a drink since," and that he "could’ve gone for, like, a year for everything I did. It was that serious."
He continued by saying that his lawyer told him to "ask for the Homo Tank" -- a "gay section," he called it -- when he got there "because you won’t survive on the main line." After they refused to put him in the section he requested, he was put in an area called the Softie Tank, where he expected to stay for the 120 days. However, after 12 days, the guards came and told him that he was out.
"'But we don’t have a bed for Robert Downey Jr. He’s downstairs. You have to give him your bed,'" Jordan recalled the guards telling him. "'And you're going to give him your bed and he's going to take your bed.' We were in a little holding area. I didn’t really get to converse with him at all."
However, the two will always have something in common, Jordan said, "152, Pod A, Cell 13, top bunk."
Downey Jr., meanwhile, famously struggled with substance abuse in the 1990s, landing him in both rehab and jail on multiple occasions. In 1996, the then 31-year-old actor was arrested in Los Angeles after authorities found heroin, cocaine, and a pistol in his car. After violating his parole for that arrest, Downey Jr. spent nearly a year in prison in 1997.
Since then, the actor says he has been drug-free since 2003, and in December 2015 he was officially pardoned for a 1996 drug conviction.
Jordan, on his end, also struggled with substance abuse back in the day, and became sober after his arrest. The 65-year-old actor, meanwhile, has recently become the social media influencer people didn't know they needed amid quarantine. ET caught up with the American Horror Story actor after his Instagram videos and updates went viral.
"Even my agents were saying, you know, 'There's a way we could maybe monetize' -- which I didn't even know was a word -- and I said no," he said. "I'm just having a good time and I don't want to do that. I don't want to make money out of it."
See more in the video below.
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