Viral ‘Hot Mugshot’ Student Reveals Parents’ Reaction to Her Arrest
The Georgia sorority girl’s dad “couldn’t even think of something more stupid.”
The Daily Beast/Morgan County Sheriff's Office
The college student whose mugshot went viral this week has shed some light on how her parents reacted.
Lily Stewart, a 20-year-old student at the University of Georgia, was arrested and charged with speeding on March 8. But what caught the internet’s attention was her dazzling mugshot.
In it, she displays pearl earrings, a slightly frazzled blowout, and is flashing the camera a wide smile.
“Everyone’s been asking me, ‘Why’d you smile, why’d you smile?’ I just smile. It was just like an instinct,” Stewart told PEOPLE Friday. “There were cameras up there. I popped my smile and turned to the side.”
Her mom, Michelle Stewart, asked her daughter about the booking photo in passing, telling her: “I hope you looked pretty.”
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Stewart initially only received a ticket from the Georgia State Patrol officer for going over the speed limit, with the UGA student admitting it would probably be her “fourth or fifth” ticket so far. It was her speeding off again mere minutes later that landed her in a holding cell.
After spending an uncomfortable time in a cell with men ogling her like “some rib-eye steak,” paying her $440 bond, and getting her booking photo taken, Stewart was free to go.
Once out of the station, she phoned her parents. Her dad, George Stewart, picked up first and found the situation amusing.
“This is how I said it: I was like, ‘Dad, think of the absolute worst thing I could possibly do,’” she said.
“And he was like, ‘Hmmm spend a bunch of money on my card and make me go broke.’ And I was like, ‘No, not that,’” Stewart said. “‘And he was like, ‘Well, then, you didn’t get in trouble with the law–’ And I was like, ‘Ding, ding, ding.’ And then he laughed and he was like, ‘You got arrested?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’”
Stewart said he grew more somber once he heard her charge.
“Lily, I couldn’t even think of something more stupid.”
Though ultimately Stewart’s parents weren’t upset with her, her mom still chided: “I want to thump you upside the head.”
Stewart never expected the “15 minutes of fame” her mugshot would garner her: “I mean, it’s just a mugshot.”
“I actually think it’s a bad photo of me,” she said.
The Morgan County Sheriff Tyler Hooks was also shocked at the praise Stewart received for her photo, but hoped that “she just learned her lesson.”
Stewart is currently completing 20 hours of community service, a defensive driving course, and is writing a paper about the dangers of speeding.
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