Tara Reid Claims She Was Drugged at a Chicago Hotel — How Common Is Drink Spiking?
Tara Reid is in the news after TMZ shared a disturbing video of the nearly unconscious actor being escorted from the lobby of a Chicago-area hotel on November 23.
Tara Reid plans to file police report after incident at Chicago hotel
The American Pie star, who was in town for Chicago’s Comic-Con, was taken to the hospital after the incident and has since returned home to Los Angeles. She says that she was having a drink at the hotel bar when she went outside to have a cigarette. When she returned, she had a few sips of her wine, but remembers nothing of what happened afterward.
“Tara Reid is trying to file a police report after an incident in which she believes her drink was tampered with. She is cooperating fully with the investigation,” a representative for Reid said in a statement to Us Weekly. “Tara is recovering and asks for privacy during this traumatic time. She also urges everyone to be careful, watch your drinks and never leave them unattended, as this can happen to anyone. She will not be making further comments at this stage.”
Reid has struggled with alcohol use in the past. In 2008, she checked herself into rehab, with a source telling People she was “erratic” and “a completely different person when she’s intoxicated.”
Many women report having their drinks spiked at some point
While Reid has a history of substance abuse, her claims of being drugged aren’t entirely far-fetched. Fifty-six percent of women surveyed by Alcohol.org in 2023 reported having a drink spiked at least once. While nearly 50% of those incidents happened at a house party, just under a third occurred at a bar. Women who said they’d been drugged experienced symptoms similar to those Reid displaying in the video, including slurring words, sedation, sleepiness, and confusion.
“Drugging is more than simply an urban legend,” said Suzanne C. Swan of the University of South Carolina in 2016.
Swan has studied drink spiking among college students. Her team’s survey of more than 6,000 students at three universities found that just under 8% reported having had a drink spiked (via the American Psychological Association). But getting clear data on the extent of the problem can be a challenge.
“We have no way of knowing if the drugging victims were actually drugged or not, and many of the victims were not certain either,” the researchers wrote in their paper, which was published in the journal Psychology of Violence. “It is possible that some respondents drank too much, or drank a more potent kind of alcohol than they were accustomed to.”
How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.
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