FREE T.I.!!!! My boy T.I. got arrested AGAIN. In 2007, he was charged with two feleonies – possession of three unregistered MACHINE GUNS (and silencers!) and possession of firearms by a convicted felon. Those were federal charges by the way – ATF got involved! Anyway, T.I. just got out of Club Fed (Arkansas’s low-security prison) less than a year ago – he had to stay in a half-way house for several months, but since March, he’s been back in the game. He’s been doing some interviews and he married his longtime girlfriend Tameka “Tiny” Cottle. Tiny was with him last night, and they both got busted for possession of a controlled substance.

The honeymoon is over for T.I. and his wife Tameka Cottle because TMZ has learned they were arrested tonight and booked for the alleged possession of a controlled substance.

Law enforcement sources tell us L.A. County Sheriff’s deputies pulled over the multi-platinum selling rapper and his wife in a Maybach on Sunset Boulevard around 10:18PM. Deputies say they smelled marijuana.

When searching the vehicle cops found a controlled substance. Law enforcement sources tell us the controlled substance was not cocaine, but rather the class of controlled substance that triggered the arrest includes methamphetamines and ecstasy.

The couple just got married on July 30 in Miami, and T.I. — real name Clifford Harris Jr. — is on probation after doing seven months in prison on federal weapons charges.

Law enforcement sources say both T.I. and Tameka were booked on felony possession of a controlled substance.

We’re told T.I. and Tameka are in custody right now. Bail amount is $10,000.

UPDATE: T.I. and Tameka were released around 4:00AM.

[From TMZ]

Damn, T.I. is pretty hardcore, yes? I mean, any dude can come out and say “Yeah, I used to be a thug, back in the mean streets of my suburbs.” But T.I. is actually still living a pretty gangster life. Anyway, I hope T.I. and Tiny beat the charges. FREE T.I.!!!

Terrence Howard and T.I. came out separately in support of Chris Brown in the wake of reports that he beat his girlfriend, singer Rihanna, to the point of leaving her unconscious with a split lip and black eye. Both are now saying that they made those statements before they knew the supposed facts of the case and are retracting comments favorable to Brown, which may haven been interpreted as being dismissive of how serious the allegations are:

When asked by paparazzi last night if he had any comment on the Chris Brown incident with Rihanna, the actor said, “It’s just life, man. Chris is a great guy. He’ll be all right. And Rihanna knows he loves her. She’ll be all right. Just everybody’s got to get out of their way.”

But now, Howard is insisting he didn’t know about the allegations made against Brown when he made his remarks.

“When they asked me about Chris Brown the other day, I was in no way aware of what he had been accused of,” Howard said in a statement. “Had I known, I would have never had said something so insensitive.”
Howard is the second high-profile celeb in as many days to retract remarks they made about Brown and Rihanna.

Rapper T.I. issued a statement yesterday regretting comments he made the night before on Last Call With Carson Daly. T.I. said he “made a mistake of commenting before understanding the situation.”
T.I. told Daly that he had spoken to Brown since the alleged incident occurred early Sunday morning. “I told him, ‘This too shall pass.’ We’re celebrities, we’re entertainers, but we’re still human—all of us,” he said. “Don’t expect us not to make mistakes because we will.”

[From E! Online]

I believe them. Not everyone follows celebrity gossip as closely as we do, and they may have only heard brief reports and assumed that something else happened before more details came out. T.I. knows Brown and probably doesn’t consider him capable of something as barbaric as strangling and biting someone.

It’s possible these advance details we’ve been hearing, supposedly leaked from inside the LAPD, are incorrect and that the situation is different than we’ve been told. It’s best for celebrities to err on the safe side, though, and not to say they’re supportive of someone who was supposedly capable of doing that. It makes your heart sink to even think about that situation and you hope Rihanna is ok. If Chris did that to her, he needs to be prosecuted. A British source is reporting that Rihanna needs plastic surgery. I’ve seen that same paper routinely make up and embellish stories and am hoping that one is complete BS.