The Chrisley family just can’t seem to stay out of the headlines. Lindsie Chrisley, the 36-year-old former star of the hit USA Network reality show “Chrisley Knows Best,” was arrested late Saturday night in Cherokee County, Georgia, on a stack of charges that goes well beyond a simple traffic stop. And her explanation for what happened? She says she was just trying to dodge an animal in the road.
What Happened on the Road That Night
According to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, deputies pulled Lindsie over around 10:25 pm. on the night of May 23. What they observed led to a pretty serious list of charges: DUI (specifically “DUI less safe”), attempting to elude police, improper passing, reckless driving, and speeding. Five charges from a single traffic encounter. That’s not your average “oops, I ran a stop sign” kind of night.
The incident reportedly started when officers observed Chrisley swerving around another vehicle on a two-lane road in Concord, Georgia. What followed, according to police, included her allegedly trying to elude officers during the stop. That particular charge, attempting to elude, can actually be treated as a felony in some jurisdictions. This wasn’t just a fender bender or a rolling stop. This was, by all accounts, a chaotic scene on a dark Georgia road over Memorial Day weekend.
Lindsie’s Side of the Story
Lindsie wasn’t staying quiet about this one. She went straight to TMZ with her version of events, and she kept it simple. “I got pulled over speeding past a car on a two-lane road because they almost hit an animal and I was trying to miss hitting them and whatever the animal was,” she told the outlet.
In other words, she’s saying the swerving and speeding weren’t because she was impaired. She was reacting to a dangerous situation. An animal on the road, another car slamming on their brakes, and her trying to avoid a collision. She also made it clear she plans to fight every single one of the charges. Whether a judge agrees with that version of events is another matter entirely, but she’s clearly not taking a plea and walking away.
What “DUI Less Safe” Actually Means in Georgia
One detail that’s getting a lot of attention is the specific DUI charge Lindsie faces. It’s called “DUI less safe,” and it’s a Georgia-specific law that trips up a lot of people who don’t know it exists. Under this statute, you can be charged with a DUI even if your blood alcohol concentration is below the legal limit of 0.08%, or even if you refused to take a breathalyzer entirely.
Instead of relying on a number from a breath test, officers have to demonstrate that the driver was impaired through other means. That can include observable behavioral indicators, performance on field sobriety tests, the way someone was driving, speech patterns, or the smell of alcohol. It gives law enforcement a lot more flexibility, but it also means these cases can be harder to prove in court. If Lindsie’s lawyers can poke holes in the officer’s observations, she might have a real shot at beating this one.
The Bond and Her Quick Release
After being booked into the Cherokee County jail, Lindsie didn’t stay long. She was processed and released in the early morning hours of Sunday, May 24, after posting a bond totaling $5,961. The breakdown gives you a sense of how each charge was weighted: $1,355 for the DUI less safe charge, $680 for improper passing, $565 for reckless driving, and a hefty $2,006 for the speeding charge alone. That speeding bond being the biggest piece of the total tells you she was probably going well above whatever the posted limit was on that two-lane road.
By Sunday morning, she was out. But the mugshot was already taken, the paperwork was filed, and the internet was doing what the internet does.
A Rough Stretch for Lindsie’s Personal Life
This arrest didn’t happen in a vacuum. Lindsie has been going through an incredibly turbulent period, and the DUI charge is just the latest chapter. Just weeks before her arrest, her now-ex-boyfriend David Landsman was arrested in Woodstock, Georgia, in mid-April. He was booked on a felony charge of aggravated assault by strangulation and a misdemeanor battery charge. According to reports, he allegedly placed his hand around a person’s neck and told them they were “not going anywhere.”
The situation between Lindsie and Landsman was messy from all angles. Both sides claimed the other one attacked them. Landsman was actually the one who called 911, telling the dispatcher that Lindsie had beaten him before fleeing in her Lexus. Lindsie’s version was that Landsman had choked and strangled her, and she hit him in the head to get him to stop. After the incident, both parties sought temporary restraining orders against each other and agreed to a mutual no-contact order requiring them to stay 500 yards apart.
The relationship had apparently gotten serious enough that Lindsie had changed her professional last name from Chrisley to Landsman. Now that the relationship has blown up, that name change takes on a very different meaning.
Her Podcast Comments Days Before the Arrest
Here’s a detail that makes the timing of all this even more striking. Just five days before her arrest, on the May 18 episode of her podcast “The Southern Tea,” Lindsie had made a pretty dramatic announcement. She told her listeners she was committing to 365 days of celibacy and planned to have zero conversations with any man for that entire stretch. She called it the right move for herself at that point in her life. Five days later, she’s in the back of a squad car.
That kind of timing is the reason people can’t look away from reality TV stars. You can’t script it better than that. Whether the podcast declaration was genuine self-reflection or content strategy, the arrest immediately overshadowed it.
The Long Shadow of the Chrisley Family Drama
You really can’t talk about Lindsie without talking about the broader Chrisley family saga, because it’s the backdrop to everything she does publicly. Lindsie appeared on “Chrisley Knows Best” for roughly 20 episodes between 2014 and 2017 before she left the show. The reasons were rooted in growing tensions within the family, and those tensions eventually turned into something much bigger.
Her father, Todd Chrisley, and stepmother Julie Chrisley were convicted in 2022 of bank fraud and tax evasion. Prosecutors said the couple had taken out fraudulent bank loans worth millions, spent lavishly on expensive cars, designer clothes, and real estate, and then hid their earnings from the IRS. Todd was sentenced to 12 years. Julie got seven. The family publicly accused Lindsie of being the one who tipped off investigators, something Todd stated publicly back in 2021.
That accusation fractured the family in a way that hasn’t been repaired. Lindsie has been estranged from her father for years. She’s discussed the rift on her podcast multiple times, and as recently as March 2025, she said she hadn’t seen her dad “in quite some time.”
The Trump Pardons and What They Mean for the Family
In May 2025, President Donald Trump pardoned both Todd and Julie Chrisley, clearing their convictions and releasing them from federal prison. In a video posted to X, Trump spoke directly to Lindsie’s younger siblings Savannah and Grayson, telling them, “Your parents are going to be free and clean.” The pardons were a massive moment for the Chrisley family, but for Lindsie, it added another complicated layer. Her parents were free, but the family rift remained very much intact.
Meanwhile, the state of Georgia had already settled with the elder Chrisleys in January 2024, agreeing to pay them $1 million after Todd and Julie sued, alleging a state tax official had improperly shared confidential information. So even before the pardons, the Chrisleys were fighting back on multiple fronts.
What Comes Next for Lindsie
Lindsie has built a post-TV career around podcasting and digital media. She co-hosted “Coffee Convos” alongside Teen Mom star Kailyn Lowry before launching “The Southern Tea” as her own solo platform. Her estimated net worth sits somewhere between $1.5 and $2 million, though she’s said publicly that much of her financial savings were affected by her divorce from Will Campbell, which was finalized back in 2016.
Now she’s looking at a legal fight on the DUI and the four other charges, a messy breakup that involved domestic violence allegations on both sides, and a family estrangement that shows no signs of thawing. It’s a lot for anyone to carry, famous or not.
The charges she faces are serious but not insurmountable in court, especially if the “DUI less safe” evidence comes down to officer observations rather than hard numbers from a breathalyzer. Her animal-on-the-road defense might sound convenient, but two-lane Georgia roads at 2 a.m. are exactly the kind of place where deer, raccoons, and possums wander into traffic all the time. Whether that story holds up in court is a question for her lawyers and a judge. For now, Lindsie is free, she’s talking, and she’s gearing up for a fight. Classic Chrisley.