Emily in Paris' Jeremy O. Harris Explains How Harrowing Japan Prison Stay Was Actually a Positive Experience

Jeremy O. Harris was in a terrifying situation last year when he was arrested in Japan and held in prison for 23 days without being given access to his lawyer, but he is viewing it as a positive experience in the end.

The 36-year-old playwright and actor is best known for writing the acclaimed show Slave Play and for his guest appearance as Grégory Elliot Duprée in four episodes of the Netflix series Emily in Paris.

Back in November, Jeremy was stopped at Japan’s Naha Airport on Okinawa island. A customs officer allegedly found “0.78 grams of crystal containing the synthetic narcotic MDMA in his tote bag.”

Jeremy was later released “without charges” and decided to stay in Japan to research the project he traveled there for.

Now, in a chat with Whoopi Goldberg for Interview Magazine, Jeremy is explaining why it turned into a positive experience for him.

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“I’m also working on a book about what just happened when I was in Japan. I don’t know if you know this, but I got arrested,” Jeremy told Whoopi. “They found something in my bag, and you don’t get to talk to a lawyer for 23 days. They just put you in a cell and investigate you with no lawyer. I had to talk to them through a translator. It’s all crazy. I’m writing a book about that experience called Customs.”

Jeremy revealed he was arrested the week before Thanksgiving and then released on December 8.

“I do think it was an experience that rich white people would pay for because I lost 10 pounds, read 23 books, got off my phone, and detoxed from my internet addiction. It was kind of amazing,” he said.

“The first thing I said was, ‘These are not my drugs. This is an accident from a wedding. Drug test me.’ They drug tested me and I was negative. And because my story didn’t change over 23 days, they couldn’t keep me. So in order to punish me, they put out a press release. It was in The New York Times. It’s a whole thing,” Jeremy said. “My mom was so scared. I was just working out every day and reading and doing the things I should have done during COVID, which was discover a new way of existing with my body. Because I’m 36 now. I can’t eat anything I want and drink every night and stay slim. And all of a sudden I was like, ‘Wait, I can still get a six-pack? I just have to stretch every morning? Cool.’”

Jeremy went viral for a story he told about Adele a few years back.