Canada's, and possibly the world's, most famous drunk-in-the-backseat-of-a-cop-car crooner has been convicted of impaired driving and refusing a breathalyzer test.
Robert Wilkinson shot to internet fame in March after police car cameras caught him belting out Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" while in the back of a cruiser after being pulled over for drunk driving near Edson, Alberta.
Wilkinson, 29, showed up at the courthouse to represent himself on Tuesday wearing sunglasses, a Viking helmet complete with horns, and a NASA T-shirt proclaiming: "I need my space."
He was ordered to pay a $1,400 fine and prohibited from driving for one year.
On the video, a scruffy, bearded Wilkinson launches into the six-minute classic, gesticulating wildly at times and scrunching up his face with angst for the sad bits. He was pulled over by police after joining his friends for a drink at the pub in the local Best Western.
He was encouraged to post the video to YouTube by friends. It went viral, with more than nine million views.
Wilkinson ends with the second-last line of the tune, but changes it from "Nothing really matters to me" to "Nothing really matters, even the RCMP." The arresting officer did little to stop him, save for encouraging him to "calm down" a few times.
In April, Wilkinson told the National Post he was fired from his job at the local recycling plant after the video went viral. He admitted he had a reputation with police before the incident, but said he wasn't quite sure why.
"You know how people are labeling people, and once someone gets a bad rap, it sticks with them for life? I guess I just had a bad rap with the police," he said. "The police have hurt me more than once, but I don't want to go into that."
Dealing with his new-found fame, Wilkinson told the National Post his life became a "slow burning hell." Post-video he said "I don't know what I'm going to do now, end up in the gutter probably."
Wilkinson was singing a different tune in court, however. He told The Canadian Press that his brief bout with fame didn't change his life much, although he did receive $1,000 from an American cable network so it could air the video on the show World's Dumbest Criminals.
(With files from CP)
Also on HuffPost
