Last season, "American Idol" saw Phillip Phillips win the title. The fame that Phillips now owns has now been overshadowed somewhat by the infamy of his mother Cheryl Jean Phillips -- who appeared on several episodes of "Idol" last season -- as she was arrested for DUI on Thursday.
The arrest took place in Albany, Ga. According to law enforcement sources, Cheryl Phillips was arrested after an undercover unit observed her swerving the van she was driving back and forth across lanes of traffic. Albany is near Phillip's hometown of Leesburg, Ga.
Based on the swerving that Cheryl Phillips was doing, as well as what officers observed after the stop, authorities believed that she was under the influence something, but couldn't pinpoint what. They didn't smell alcohol on her breath, but officers administered a field sobriety test, and Phillips was unable to complete it successfully.
Given that, police took Phillips into custody and transferred her to a nearby hospital, where doctors decided she was healthy enough to go to jail. As of the time of the report, she was being booked into a jail in Dougherty County.
Maj. Bill Berry said:
The driver was all over the road, so my officer pulled her over. She was taken to the hospital for a blood test and has been charged with DUI-Less Safe.
To be clear, according to Berry, DUI less safe is generally charged when a person isn't believed to be under the influence of alcohol, but could be under the influence of another substance.
They didn't smell or detect any alcohol on her person, but she couldn't complete the field sobriety test so our guys charged her with less safe since she was under the influence of something
A blood test was taken to determine what Cheryl Phillips was under the influence of, but Berry said it could take weeks for the results to come back.
It is unclear if this could explain Phillips behavior, but a source close to the Phillips family stated that Phillip Phillip's parents separated just last week. According to TMZ, Phillips has a strained relationship with his family, and refused to help them financially after their pawn shop went out of business.
Although Phillip Phillips won "American Idol" last season, he did so while in considerable pain. He suffers from a congenital kidney condition that produces kidney stones so large that he cannot pass them. Soon after the "American Idol" season had finished, he had surgery to remove kidney stones as well as reconstructive surgery on his kidney.
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