From Kevin Reed to county jail
Chris O’Neal, the actor we all remember as Kevin Reed on Nickelodeon’s How to Rock, spent a night behind bars this week. Yes, the Gravity 4 drummer had a rather less rock-and-roll encounter with the law.
Los Angeles police arrested him Monday after a Malibu homeowner reported three men entering his property. The complainant saw them through the security cameras.
“TMZ” reported that the alleged thieves had manipulated the cameras from the back of the house.
But here comes the unexpected twist: O’Neal was released the next day. Authorities simply did not have enough to keep him in custody.
“There were no sufficient grounds to file a complaint against that person,” a source told “TMZ.”
From Gravity 4 to probation (for one day)
It’s one of those moments where real life surpasses any teenage script. Chris, now 31 years old, was part of that golden generation of Nickelodeon where he even shared the screen with Ariana Grande in Swindle.
How to Rock only lasted one season, but it was enough to remain engraved in the collective millennial memory. Later the channel kept him active by presenting You Gotta See This.
Now his name is back in the headlines for reasons quite different than playing drums for Gravity 4. The transition from child star to crime news is a well-trodden path in Hollywood, but O’Neal at least got a quick ending in this chapter.
The question that remains: was it really a misunderstanding or was there simply not enough evidence? For now, Chris is free and probably remembering his Nickelodeon days as simpler times.
