Michael Douglas accepted his award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his role in HBO’s Behind the Candelabra at the 65th annual Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday night and during his speech, he gave a shout out to his son Cameron.
Cameron, 35, is currently carrying out a 10-year federal prison sentence. Backstage, Douglas further explained why he mentioned his son while collecting his award.
"Well, my son is in federal prison based upon -– he's been a drug addict for a large part of his life and was arrested and selling drugs and is in federal prison," he said, Us Weekly reports.
"And part of their punishments if you happen to have a slip -– this is for a prisoner who is nonviolent -- as about a half a million of our drug addicted prisoners are, they punish you. So for my son's case, he's spent almost 2 years in solitary confinement and right now I'm being told that I cannot see him for two years."
Cameron is about halfway through with being in solitary confinement, but Douglas admits that he’s now “questioning the system.”
“I think things are going to be revived regarding nonviolent drug addicts/criminals," he also said, adding, "My last comment on that is the United States represents 5 percent of the world's population and we have 25 percent of the world's prisoners,” AceShowBiz reports.
Also during his acceptance speech, he joked around about his co-star, Matt Damon, saying “This is a two-hander, and you're only as good as your other hand.”
image: Wikimedia Commons
