People Features

Addiction expert comments on Scout Willis' underage drinking bust

By April MacIntyre Jun 6, 2012, 0:45 GMT

The daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Scout Willis, was busted in New York for possessing a fake ID and drinking underage in public.

The daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Scout Willis, was busted in New York for possessing a fake ID and drinking underage in public.

Willis is due back in court on July 31 after being charged with two misdemeanors Tuesday.

She allegedly drank a beer and then handed cops a fake ID in New York's Union Square on Monday evening, according to People magazine.

Willis, 20, rejected the state's offer to plead guilty to the charges as they stand now because she would have a permanent criminal record, which infuriates her attorney.

"It would be outrageous to mar a person that's clearly going places – clearly seeking to have a career … with a criminal record," her attorney, Stacey Richman, tells People magazine. "The goal is clearly a non-criminal offer."

Richman calls Monday's arrest of Scout as "ridiculous."

"Seriously, you were underage once ... who wasn't looking to get into a bar?" she remarked to People.

According to reports, Willis gave an officer a New York ID card with the name "Katherine Kelly."

Willis was released without bail on Tuesday.

Addiction expert and father Richard Taite, president of Cliffside Malibu, a rehabilitation facility, was simpatico with the attorney's remarks about the charges.

"Any time you have parents that are in the public eye, and famous celebrities, it can be very, very hard on the children, especially because children and younger kids can be so cruel. To have your mother out in the public eye going through a difficult time with alleged substance abuse problems can be hard, and a divorce is clearly stressful for children and most certainly doesn’t help matters. If people are fortunate enough to have successful movie careers the downside to that is their children might not be getting the attention that they need from their parents, and it’s not merely financial."

"What most children want is a connection with their parents, to get attention. When you don’t get that, your needs aren’t getting met and that can give rise to feelings of selfworthlessness on behalf of the children because after all their feeling is 'if my parents don’t have time for me, and give me the attention I need, and don’t meet my very basic needs, then I must not be worth it.'  Having said all of that, this is a 20 year old, she is not a public figure, so to be reporting on something like this is deplorable and quite frankly this would have meant a great deal more had she been 15.  But she is 20 years old, within 12 months of legal drinking age, and I don’t know many 20 year olds that haven’t experienced a beer."