Wait … our beloved Tana Mongeau was arrested?! The popular YouTuber, 21, reminded fans and followers of her encounter with police at Coachella in 2017 on April 9 by sharing her mugshot from the incident. “In honor of Coachella weekend coming up,” she captioned the milestone photo on Instagram, adding the hashtags “#mugshotchallenge” and “#neverforget.” But why exactly did the blonde beauty end up in handcuffs? Let’s break it down.
Tana posted a video to her YouTube channel days after the situation where she explained her side of the story. According to the MTV starlet, she and her friends went to one of the VIP bars to get Red Bulls and waters, as it was hot and they were feeling dehydrated. The Las Vegas native also claimed that at this point in the day she was “dead sober.”
The bartender recognized the vlogger and explained she was a “big fan” and insisted on serving up drinks for Tana and her crew. “She was being really sweet, and as you know, I am so bad at saying ‘no’ to anything,” the entrepreneur explained. “So I was like, ‘Fine, we’ll just take three Red Bull vodkas.’ We take the Red Bull vodkas and we walk away.”
“Now I’m not going to lie to you guys, I would have drunk the Red Bull vodka,” she admitted, despite being only 19 at the time. “But, I kid you not, I’m standing there, I literally take the straw and put the straw to my mouth to take a sip, to taste it, and the second the straw touches my mouth literally four undercover cops surround me.” Yikes.
Tana goes on to explain that cops dressed as “normal Coachella people” started to question her about the alcohol in her cup. “Literally as I’m about to throw it away, the girl officer in the f—king flower crown grabs my arm and pulls me back and she goes, ‘Well, maybe you shouldn’t be drinking a drink if you’re Google-able, Tana,'” she said.
Ultimately, the Los Angeles resident ended up getting booked and taken to a special jail facility inside the festival (wild, right?) where they took her fingerprints and mugshot after questioning her more severely. They also issued her a summons before letting her back into the event.
“I know I shouldn’t have accepted the drink, I know I shouldn’t be drinking the drink, I know I’m breaking the law, I know I’m wrong,” Tana confessed in her video. “I just think they were being a little bit harsh.”