Rick Harrison Just Confirmed Chumlee's Life Sentence Is True
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00:00Breaking news right now on Pawn Stars, Chumlee, whose real name is Austin Lee Russell.
00:05Austin Russell, better known as Chumlee, is in jail tonight.
00:08Trisha, Ricky, we pulled the records and take a look, 19 drug charges and one weapons charge.
00:14Rick Harrison has finally said it out loud and what he revealed broke the silence.
00:19And the fans.
00:20The pawn shop is crumbling, his own mom took him to court,
00:23and now the truth about Chumlee is dragging everything down with it.
00:27What started as a show about old coins is now a headline about arrests, lies, and a business falling apart fast.
00:33Let's reveal it, because what the police found behind Chumlee's door will leave you speechless.
00:39The Collapse.
00:40No one saw coming.
00:42Chumlee's fall didn't happen overnight.
00:44It was a slow wreck.
00:45First, it was the fight in the street.
00:47Some guy bleeding, Chumlee running, then cops showed up years later, knocked on his door,
00:51and what they found inside, not great.
00:54Stuff he shouldn't have had.
00:55Things no one wants to be caught with.
00:58And the weapons?
00:59Twelve of them.
01:00Eight with no paperwork.
01:02That's not just a bad day.
01:04That's something you can't explain away with a goofy smile.
01:08But the worst part wasn't the raid.
01:10Rick tried to keep it quiet.
01:12He kept the cameras rolling, made jokes, kept the focus on rusty coins and old swords.
01:17But the storm kept building.
01:19Viewers started asking questions.
01:21Why isn't Chumlee around?
01:23What happened to the funny guy with the bad haircut?
01:26I don't see Chumlee doing that.
01:28I think that might be somebody out trying.
01:31Then the court papers showed up and everything spilled.
01:34At the same time, Rick's own world was crumbling.
01:37His mother took him to court.
01:40Not just a fight over dinner.
01:41A full-on legal battle.
01:43She said he tricked her, stole her share of the business, claimed he made her sign things while she was still recovering from a coma.
01:50That's not a little problem.
01:52That's a giant mess.
01:54The pawn shop wasn't making the money it used to.
01:57Tourists stopped coming.
01:59The world changed.
02:00Pandemic hit and the shop, once pulling in more than one million each year, now barely making a dent.
02:07Rick was juggling lawsuits, lost cash in a show that felt more fake every episode.
02:11The show was never the same after the old man passed.
02:15He was the rock.
02:17Tough, sharp, always calling it like it is.
02:20When he died, everything started sliding.
02:23Corey wanted to be the boss.
02:25Rick held tight.
02:26And then Chumlee, well, he was busy trying to keep his name off the front page.
02:31And just when it seemed like it couldn't get worse, Rick found out about his mom's lawsuit in the news.
02:37No call, no heads up, just headlines.
02:40She even got a restraining order to stop him from touching the money she says is hers.
02:45This woman was over 80, sick, and stuck with bills over $100,000 each month.
02:50That kind of pressure?
02:52It breaks people.
02:53Chumlee had already broken.
02:55The deal he cut in court was supposed to keep him out of jail.
02:57But now, new things are coming to light.
03:00Was this graded at one time?
03:02No, I've never had a graded.
03:03You mind if I pull this out of the plastic?
03:05Bigger things.
03:06And Rick, he just confirmed it.
03:08The life sentence.
03:09No dancing around it.
03:10No soft words.
03:12Rick wasn't the only one crashing.
03:13Corey had his own mess.
03:15From prime time to police reports, Corey had his own train wreck.
03:20That guy made headlines for tossing bar stools and peeing in public.
03:24Got kicked out of a bar after days of drinking.
03:26Then wrecked a rented motorhome.
03:29Didn't pay for the damage.
03:30The man who owned it said it looked like a tornado hit it.
03:33$30,000 in damage.
03:35Ten bookings canceled.
03:37Filed a police report.
03:38Another mess.
03:39Even the experts they brought on the show started falling apart.
03:43One got caught hitting his girlfriend outside a restaurant.
03:46Another messed up a signature so bad it became a joke.
03:49And then one faked sports stuff, got caught, and took the whole show down a notch.
03:53The show, once fun and real, now felt like a circus.
03:57Viewers noticed items were picked out ahead of time.
04:01Prices looked staged.
04:02The laughs forced.
04:04The drama too clean.
04:05Even Rick didn't seem into it anymore.
04:08He was buying property, looking for exits.
04:11Pawn Plaza, his big idea, was supposed to bring crowds.
04:14It flopped.
04:15Shops closed.
04:16Food was too pricey.
04:18The whole thing looked like an empty promise.
04:20Fans stopped caring.
04:22And then Olivia Black got fired for pictures from her past.
04:26Fans were mad.
04:27Hypocrisy all over the place.
04:29Reality shows feet on drama.
04:31But when it came to standing by their people, they vanished.
04:35One man even said his stolen coin collection got sold to the shop.
04:39And when he found out, the coins were already melted down.
04:43Gone.
04:44He said the store should have known.
04:46They said they didn't.
04:47Either way, it was just another ugly headline.
04:50The whole thing feels like a long fall off a tall ladder.
04:53From treasure hunters to courtroom regulars.
04:56What used to be a fun show about weird stuff and old history became a never-ending disaster
05:00reel.
05:01And now, with Rick confirming Chumley's life sentence, the last piece has dropped.
05:06This isn't a comeback story.
05:08It's the kind of thing people whisper about years later, saying,
05:11Remember that guy from the pawn show?
05:13Meanwhile, the numbers started crashing.
05:15Viewers tuned out.
05:17Ratings fell.
05:18Social media dragged them.
05:20Fans asked if it was all fake.
05:22Setups, scripts, faked finds, cast members pretending.
05:26Jokes that didn't land.
05:27Deals that looked too clean.
05:29One episode showed a man bringing in a rare guitar.
05:33But fans spotted the same guitar on a collector's website months before.
05:37Comments blew up.
05:38Another time, a seller brought a sword from a war nobody could place.
05:43The experts said it was real.
05:45A day later, a historian called it a fake.
05:48Then came the other experts.
05:50Johnny with the toy knowledge caught in a street brawl.
05:52John with the pen skills mislabeling famous names.
05:56Drew the sports guy giving the green light on fakes.
05:59Each scandal made fans wonder what else got past his truth.
06:03It's pretty old.
06:06It looks pretty nice.
06:09Pawn Stars was not what it once was.
06:11The air was different.
06:12Every new season felt like a repeat.
06:15Same faces, same forced laughs, same kind of items.
06:19Only now, they came with legal baggage.
06:22Rick kept pushing forward, but not in the shop.
06:25He had other plans.
06:26Real estate, side hustles, anything but coins and comics.
06:31Inside the store, workers said business had changed.
06:34Less walk-ins, more staged scenes.
06:37Rare items magically showing up on camera days after filming stopped.
06:41One former staff member said everything was listed before the deal even aired.
06:46And all this while, Chumley waited on his final fate.
06:50The streets he once joked about, the friends he partied with, now gone.
06:54No fanfare.
06:55No special goodbye.
06:57Just a line in court and a nod from Rick.
07:00Long before the cameras, this family took some hard hits.
07:05The true cost of a family business.
07:07Back in the late 1960s, the Harrisons were hit hard.
07:11Little Sherry had a medical condition she was born with.
07:15It wasn't something they could fix, and it sure wasn't something insurance was ready to handle.
07:19Her parents, they were crushed.
07:21Her dad, the one they called the old man on the show, did something big just to try and keep up with the medical bills.
07:28He signed back up for the military.
07:30Not because he wanted to wear the uniform again, but because that uniform came with a paycheck and some health coverage.
07:36He had already done time in the service, but this was different.
07:39This was survival.
07:41And even with that, she still passed.
07:44He had originally joined the military after getting in trouble for stealing a car.
07:48It was either wear a uniform or face the consequences.
07:50He did the years, left when it was done, and tried to live a normal life.
07:55But when his daughter was born with serious medical issues and the bills started piling up, he knew he had to do something.
08:02So he went back.
08:03Not because he missed the drills or the discipline, but because that uniform was a ticket to pay off hospital visits and treatments that didn't come cheap.
08:11He gave years of his life again just to try and save hers.
08:15Now, here's the kicker.
08:17Before there were pawn counters and reality television deals, the Harrisons had another gig.
08:23Real estate.
08:24They were riding the wave for a bit.
08:26Rick's mom started a business, got it off the ground, and it seemed like things might just click.
08:32But this was the early 1980s.
08:34The economy didn't just slow down.
08:36It collapsed.
08:37Mortgage rates shot up like a rocket.
08:39Try 18%.
08:41Let that sink in.
08:42They lost money fast, and by the time they saw what was happening, they had almost nothing left.
08:48Just a few thousand bucks.
08:50That's when they rolled the dice and moved to Las Vegas.
08:53It wasn't a small crash.
08:56It was one of those times where the housing market went quiet.
08:59Not slow.
08:59Not steady.
09:00Dead.
09:01No one buying.
09:02No one borrowing.
09:03Rick remembered overhearing his parents talk about it all the time.
09:06Interest rates that sounded more like highway robbery.
09:10Bills that didn't stop coming in.
09:12It got bad enough that the family business couldn't keep going.
09:15They had to pull the plug.
09:17With barely $5,000 in hand, they packed up and headed west.
09:21Not because they wanted to gamble, but because they had to start something new.
09:25Anywhere that wasn't where they were.
09:27Rick.
09:28He wasn't coasting through childhood either.
09:31When he was around eight years old, things got real scary.
09:34No warning.
09:35No signs.
09:36The world just flipped for him one day.
09:38Floor, ceiling, all mixed up.
09:40He had seizures, and not the kind you just walk off.
09:43These were serious.
09:45Knock you down and keep you there type seizures.
09:48Sometimes he couldn't even walk after.
09:50Not for days.
09:51Not for weeks.
09:52That meant no sports.
09:54No hanging out.
09:54Just books.
09:55Tons of books.
09:57And that reading time?
09:58That shaped him more than anything else.
10:00The seizures didn't just knock him down.
10:02They pulled him away from everything a kid might want to do.
10:06He missed out on bike rides, games, and even simple stuff like walking down the street.
10:11Some days, getting out of bed was impossible.
10:13His muscles would lock up or ache so badly he couldn't even take a step.
10:18Reading became his escape.
10:19Not for fun, but because it was the only thing he could do that didn't hurt.
10:24He borrowed book after book from the local library and got lost in stories and facts.
10:29That was his new world.
10:31Then, there's the old man.
10:33Richard Harrison.
10:34He was the guy with the no-nonsense face and the grumpy charm that made the show pop.
10:39But in the year 2018, that face faded for good.
10:43He died after living with a disease that messes with your body in the worst ways.
10:48Parkinson's.
10:49Slow.
10:50Quiet.
10:51Cruel.
10:52When he passed, people who watched the show every week felt it like they lost someone they knew.
10:57Rick called him a hero.
10:58Others shared memories.
11:00Fans, co-workers, everyone.
11:02He had been a big part of the screen.
11:04Not just because he knew his stuff, but because he brought a kind of honesty that stood out.
11:08That voice.
11:10That stare.
11:11That sharp reply when someone tried to sell junk.
11:14All gone.
11:16What wasn't public until later was how serious his condition had been.
11:20The family kept it quiet.
11:22But the paperwork told the truth.
11:24It was that disease that took him.
11:26Should families keep illnesses like this private or do fans deserve to know the truth?
11:31Like, comment, and subscribe if this story moved you.