If you’ve never heard the tale of Justin Long being abducted, now’s the time to strap yourself in.
We’d be willing to wager that Justin Long has seen some pretty wild things during his twenty-plus years in Hollywood. But we’re also pretty sure that not many celebrities can say they’ve had a night as wild as Long did in Michigan back in 2007. Having started as a few shots with some regulars in a local bar, his night ended in an extraordinary feat of stuntsmanship, and a pair of ruined jeans…
Justin Long was once abducted while filming on location
Today we’re delving back into Long’s episode on the Armchair Expert podcast with Dax Shepard from back in 2019, when he told an eyebrow-raising tale about a rather unfortunate night he spent in the Midwest.
Casting his mind back to the late 2000s, Long recalled the time he spent in Michigan while filming the 2009 romcom Youth In Revolt – specifically, an evening he spent with Vince Vaughn and some crew members in a local bar.
Vaughn, an A-list celebrity at the time, had caught the attention of some local drinkers – who enthusiastically roped the pair of actors into drinking copious amounts of shots. And while the movie star was sensible enough to say no, Long couldn’t pull himself away from the group when they asked if he wanted to come along to a local casino.
Whilst en route to the casino, Long explained that the locals – who he referred to as ‘townies’, offered him what he believed was marijuana. Drunken and merry, Long accepted and proceeded to smoke with the group – bookmarking the exact moment the night started to turn on its head.
As it transpires, what Long smoked was not marijuana. Rather, he believes it was actually PCP – an intense, mind-altering hallucinogenic, often referred to as angel dust.
Long, now massively out of his comfort zone as he lost control physically and mentally, began to panic – while the group of locals proceeded to drive him around, with no indication of a final destination.
Though the Dodgeball star repeatedly asked to be taken back to his hotel, the Michigan natives proceeded to career around the streets – taunting Long each time they stopped, making false promises about this stop being the last before they would drop him off.
Rather terrifyingly, his captives began to threaten to film the star. In a bid to make some money, they threatened to record Long while he was inebriated, so that they could sell the footage to a gossip site.
“How about we make another movie?” said the locals to Long. “You want to be in a movie for TMZ, or YouTube?”.
Long believed he was going to be robbed after the group alluded to his wealth, though he claimed he was too intoxicated to even make the phone calls necessary to wire anybody money.
Dramatic exit from the situation
With his fight or flight mode clearly engaged, Long made an executive decision – and decided to vacate the situation as quickly as he could.
Heroically, he leaped from the moving car – successfully evading the group but, unsurprisingly, he didn’t come out scratch-free.
“You don’t land on your feet unless you’re Spiderman,” Long quipped. “So I rolled, and of course, I rolled under the car, and they ran over my leg.”
While the thought of a speeding vehicle careering over your leg is enough to give anybody the shivers, Long described it as “one of the happiest moments of my life.”
That was until he looked at his blood-soaked jeans – admitting that although he is “the least amount interested in fashion you could be”, he was devastated to ruin his favorite pair of denims.
Remarkably, Long limped away from the scene with no broken bones – but he did suffer significant nerve damage in his leg.
Distracted by a breakup that occurred a few days later, Long couldn’t bring himself to get his leg seen until days after – admitting that the nerve damage still affects him “to this day”.
Thankfully, Long lived to tell the tale.
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