Lucy Lawless, TV’s Xena: Warrior Princess, has pled guilty in her native New Zealand to charges of unlawfully being on a ship while protesting with the environmental organization Greenpeace, but she makes no apologies. “For the first time in my life, I put my body and reputation on the line to stand up for my beliefs and do the right thing,” she told the Associated Press after appearing in an Auckland, New Zealand court. “I hope I’ve encouraged other people to do the same.” The actress, currently appearing in the STARZ series Spartacus, was arrested in February with other Greenpeace activists who boarded the oil-drilling ship to prevent it from departing to the Arctic. She camped for 77 hours on the Shell Oil-chartered ship.
Sentencing is set for September and while trespassing potentially carries a three-year prison sentence in New Zealand, Lawless told reporters as a first-time offender, she isn’t expecting to see any time in jail. The charge was previously reduced from burglary. Lawless still could face potential travel restrictions, which have beleaguered the likes of Paris Hilton, Chris Brown and Russell Brand in the past. Addressing this possibility, Lawless said, “If I couldn’t travel, obviously that would be a tremendous pain in the neck.”
~Emily Davies