Before the glass cracked: Christian Slater with wife Ryan Haddon at the premiere of his film, Windtalkers, in Los Angeles in June 2002. (AFP)

Los Angeles, Nov. 12 (Reuters): Actor Christian Slater received 20 stitches to the back of his head after his wife allegedly hurled a drinking glass at him during an argument in their Las Vegas hotel room, police said on Tuesday.

Slater’s wife, Ryan Haddon, was arrested on a misdemeanour charge of domestic battery after Monday’s incident at the Hard Rock Hotel but the film star declined to press charges, according to Carla Alston, a spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

She added that with Slater declining to press charges, it would be up to prosecutors to decide whether to pursue a case against Haddon.

Haddon, who left the scene immediately after the altercation, returned to the hotel after her husband went to the hospital. She was then taken into custody, booked at the Clark County Detention Center and later released, Alston said.

Slater, 34, initially told police that his wife threw the glass at him during an argument but “changed his story and said it was an accident” when he realised she would end up in jail, Alston told Reuters.

The incident was first reported by the syndicated TV show Access Hollywood.

Slater declined to comment publicly on the incident. His publicist said he was on his way to Vancouver, British Columbia, to start work on a movie on Wednesday.

Sources familiar with the incident said the account Slater gave to authorities was that the glass accidentally “slipped” out of his wife’s hand when she went to throw water in his face while the two were joking around.

Police spokeswoman Alston said such an explanation defied credibility given that the glass struck Slater on the back of the head behind his left ear, opening a gash so big that it took 20 stitches to close it.

He was discharged from the hospital after being treated, she said. A spokeswoman for Slater later said the actor received only nine stitches.

Slater, whose film credits include Broken Arrow, Hard Rain and Windtalkers, has had a number of his own brushes with the law in the past.

He was sentenced to 90 days in jail in 1998 for slugging his then girlfriend and biting a security officer in a drug-and-alcohol-fuelled brawl.

He also was arrested at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in 1994 when an unloaded pistol was found in his luggage.