Dustin Diamond Gives First Post-Jail Interview to Former Castmate Mario Lopez
Dustin Diamond and Mario Lopez on Extra. (Photo: Getty Images)
A little history goes a long way — just ask Dustin Diamond. The Saved by the Bell star turned guest of the state gave his first post-jail interview to former castmate Mario Lopez. In the decades since the show ended, Diamond (who played Screech) has fallen on some, well, let’s call them hard times. He tried selling T-shirts with his face on them to keep his house from falling into foreclosure. He got intermingled with some Ponzi scheme. He made a sex tape … which hardly anyone watched. Then he topped it off by going to jail.
“It’s pretty daunting,” he told Lopez (who played AC Slater on the hit show and now works as an Extra host). “It’s pretty scary going into that environment.” Still, Diamond quickly figured out a strategy to survive. “I found that as long as you follow the rules and stay within the system, it works,” he said. “You can get in and out unscathed.”
ICYMI, in late 2014 he was found guilty of disorderly conduct and carrying a concealed weapon after being involved in a barroom kerfuffle in Wisconsin, and he was sentenced to four months behind bars. Thanks to his enterprising nature, however, Diamond worked as a janitor while incarcerated and earned his freedom a month early.
According to Diamond, it all started with a fan photo. By his account, he and his fiancée, Amanda Schutz, were celebrating Christmas at a local bar when someone asked him to pose for a pic. Things took a turn, and one of the friends of the girl who had asked for the photo “sucker punched” Schutz. “She leaned back to me and her face was covered in blood,” Diamond told Lopez, noting that a man then grabbed Schutz by the hair.
“I opened my pocket knife and said, ‘Let my wife go immediately’ which worked.” He went on to clarify that he didn’t actually stab anyone during the brawl. Instead, he argued that Casey Smett — the man he was fighting with — “nicked his arm on the top of [the knife]” when he grabbed Diamond’s throat from behind. “It was a Band-Aid, the most expensive Band-Aid I’ve ever bought,” Diamond said.
Lopez also touched on other hot topics, like Behind the Bell, Diamond’s infamous 2009 Saved by the Bell tell-all in which he pretty much skewered everyone he had worked with. “The book didn’t exactly paint a flattering picture of your fellow castmates,” Lopez noted, prompting Diamond to immediately distance himself from the project.
“It wasn’t me,” he argued. “I didn’t write this. I was just as shocked and appalled.” Hmm. OK then. Guess he didn’t read it before it was published. In other news, Diamond also revealed there was a “stunt person” in his 2006 sex tape.
Looking toward the future, Diamond told Lopez that he is planning on returning to standup comedy and starting a family.
