McCready Busted for Wantin' OxyContin

Country songstress arrested for allegedly using fake prescription to score hillbilly heroin

By Charlie Amter Aug 06, 2004 6:35 PMTags

A girl's gotta do whatever it takes to score some OxyContin, apparently.

Country singer Mindy McCready was arrested Thursday and charged with prescription-drug fraud after Tennessee authorities said she used a fake prescription to cop the popular painkiller otherwise known as hillbilly heroin.

McCready, 28, was arrested at her home in Nashville after police learned she obtained the OxyContin at a pharmacy on Feb. 12.

The "A Girl's Gotta Do (What a Girl's Gotta Do)" singer is out of jail on $10,000 bail.

Florida-born McCready first broke onto the Nashville scene at the ripe age of 18. She scored a lucky break when she met producer-songwriter Norro Wilson, who directed her demo tape to renowned country producer David Malloy.

Malloy helped McCready score a record deal off the strength of their sessions, and McCready's debut album, Ten Thousand Angels, released in April of 1996, went gold later that year.

While singles like her 1996 number one hit, "Guys Do It All the Time," made McCready an instant star in the country world, she has yet to equal her early success. Her 2002 eponymous Capitol records release disappointed the label so much they have reportedly already dropped the singer.

McCready probably remains best known for her engagement to former Lois & Clark star Dean Cain. McCready was just 21 when the decade-older TV Superman proposed in 1997, but they broke things off a year later before ever making it down the aisle.

Thursday's arrest puts a serious dent in the singer's fresh-scrubbed image.

A 2001 posting on the fan site Mindy-McCready.com, ostensibly written by the singer herself, emphatically states, "As far as drugs are concerned, I have absolutely not even tried any drug but "smoking" since high school, and I have never even had a cigarette in my mouth."

It seems McCready's fans will be as forgiving as Rush Limbaugh's fans have been to him regarding her charges of doing whatever it takes to score some "Oxy C." So far, most posts on the Mindy-McCready.com boards are supportive of the singer.

"I too was very angry and disappointed at first," writes one McFan. "I thought I was going to turn my back and leave...[But] she has made a mistake....So, Mindy you are in my thoughts and prayers. I believe you will beat this." Another fan, Amanda B., writes, "I'm behind Mindy--and I hope it all works out for her."

A few, however, feel betrayed by McCready. "I can't believe I am saying this, but I no longer want to be your fan," writes J. "What you did was wrong. [D]rugs are bad, and I do not believe in using them illegally! Goodbye!"

OxyContin is a highly addictive opiate similar to Vicodin and has been the culprit in many celeb-related abuses. Aside from Limbaugh, Matthew Perry, Winona Ryder, Courtney Love and Jack and Kelly Osbourne have all been treated for using the painkiller.