In 1986, Sean Penn and Madonna went to Macau together to film “Shanghai Surprise,” and that’s when Penn got in trouble with the authorities. According to the “Mystic River” star, photographer Leonel Borralho had broken into his hotel room. Penn and his bodyguard decided to make an example of Borralho. “[We] grabbed the guy, ran him through the room to the balcony and hung him over — on the ninth floor,” Penn recalled in his biography “Sean Penn: His Life and Times” (via The Sydney Morning Herald). “Five minutes later I’m in jail, on a stone floor next to my friend, and everyone’s talking Portuguese,” he added.
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Penn claimed to then make a daring escape alongside his bodyguard as they noticed the jail cell door was left ajar. “A year later, I got in the mail at my house a pardon from the Portuguese government on a crime of which I was never convicted — no explanation,” Penn said in his biography (via Yahoo! Sports). Although, at the time there was a different version of the events reported.
Borralho, who was 61-years-old, claimed he tried to take Penn and Madonna’s photo by Macau’s Judiciary building, and that is when a scuffle ensued. Authorities took Penn and his bodyguard in for questioning, per AP. Borralho later sued the actor for $1 million, per Time. No mention of a daring prison break was mentioned, but later, Penn spent time behind bars with a famed serial killer.
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