Country music star, Hootie frontman Darius Rucker arrested on drug possession charges
Country music star and SC native Darius Rucker was arrested on misdemeanor drug possession charges Thursday in Tennessee, according to numerous published reports.
Rucker, a country crooner who also has long been known in South Carolina and around the world as the lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish, was booked into the Williamson County, Tennessee, jail on Thursday and was charged with two counts of simple possession and casual exchange, and one count of violation of registration law, according to The (Nashville) Tennessean newspaper. The arrest happened in Franklin, Tennessee, the report said. That’s about 21 miles south of Nashville.
Rucker was released Thursday on $10,500 bond, The Tennessean reported.
“Darius Rucker is fully cooperating with authorities related to misdemeanor charges,” Rucker’s attorney Mark Puryear told Nashville TV station WSMV.
Neither published report specified what substance Rucker was accused of possessing. The State reached out to a spokesperson with the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office.
Rucker has long been a part of the Grammy-winning Hootie & the Blowfish, the group that formed at the University of South Carolina in the 1980s and rocketed to stardom in the 1990s. Their album “Cracked Rear View,” in particular, was a smash, selling more than 20 million copies worldwide. Hootie is set to go on tour this summer, including a planned stop in August at Columbia’s Colonial Life Arena.
Rucker has also found wide success as a country music solo artist and has had four No. 1 albums on the Billboard country charts. In December he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
This story was originally published February 2, 2024 at 7:06 AM.
