Julian Edelman Recalls Tequila-Fueled Arrest With Paul Pierce

Back in January 2020, Julian Edelman made headlines when he was arrested during a drunken night with former Celtics star Paul Pierce. On Edelman’s latest podcast, both New England legends relived the wild experience. 

During the Games With Names podcast released Tuesday, Edelman called Pierce his “partner in crime” and said that he “had [his] back” when he was arrested and charged with vandalism in Beverly Hills, Cali. after attempting to slide across the hood of a car.

“Technically, it was a citizen’s citation arrest,” Edelman said. “I mean you can’t even hood slide anymore, Starsky and Hutch hood slide. I mean, Paul was right there.”

The duo was out at a restaurant and when they were about to leave they were told that they had to stay inside because there was a robbery in the area, according to Edelman. So to pass the time, they drank tequila for two-and-a-half hours until they were allowed to leave. Once out, Edelman attempted to slide on someone else’s car and the owner saw this and flagged down the police that were already in the area.  

“That was the weakest hood slide ever,” Pierce said, who was a guest on the podcast. “You didn’t even make it off. You like slid and stopped in the middle. I was like, ‘Ah, nah.’”

The two agreed that it Edelman had handled the hood slide smoothly, there’d be no issue but he blamed it on his clothes. 

“It was my jeans,” Edelman said. “There was no slide, there was too much friction … Me, wearing straight jeans, go over there and I kind of stuck. Home boy gets out of [the] car, waves down a cop, they start hemming me up. Paul is over there. Paul had my back though. He’s like, ’Nah get off. He didn’t do s--t, he didn’t do s---t.”

The former New England wide receiver said he thought all was well after the run-in with police and even played some one-on-one basketball with Pierce when they got home. But he woke up to 300 text messages the next day, by his estimation, after the news broke of the incident.