Lauryn Hill jailed for 3 months over tax evasion

Lauryn Hill has been sentenced to three months in jail for tax evasion. 

The 37-year-old star will spend a further three months in home confinement after pleading guilty to failing to pay taxes on around £1.2million of earnings between 2005 and 2007.

The mother of six – who admitted the charges in court last year – told the judge at yesterday’s hearing that she’d intended to pay the taxes but didn’t have the funds after quitting her career to raise her children. In a statement inside the New Jersey courthouse, Hill compared her plight to the slavery her ancestors were forced to endure. 

 She said: “I am a child of former slaves who had a system imposed on them.

“I had an economic system imposed on me.” 

 In a controlled speech, Hill described how she’d failed to pay taxes during a period after she’d quit the music industry. 

 The singer – who has had five children with Bob Marley’s son Rohan – claimed she pulled the plug on her career to protect her brood.