Publications
She was once Hollywood’s golden girl, the leading lady in some of the most enjoyable comedies of the early noughties.
So when Amanda Bynes bowed out of acting due to ongoing mental-health issues, fans were disappointed and worried. And it seems it will still be a while before she makes any sort of comeback.
Her seven-year legal conservatorship has been extended to January 2023 after a judge reviewed a recent status report on her health care.
While many of the details are under wraps, legal documents show Amanda’s parents, Lynn and Rick, will remain in control of her finances and affairs.
Her attorney, David Esquibias, says that although the 35-year-old is doing great, she still needs legal supervision.
“Everyone
would love to see Amanda not under a conservatorship,” Esquibias told Us Weekly
magazine.
“I think that’s the goal between myself, her mother, her father and her care providers. Amanda would love to be unconserved. She’s expressed it over and over. The timing isn’t right at the moment, so she’s working toward that direction. We all are working toward that direction, and one day we hope to see it.”
Amanda’s mental-health troubles started long before her public meltdown. She’d been a child star with her own shows on Nickelodeon who then successfully made the sometimes difficult transition to teen and adult roles in movies such as What a Girl Wants (2003) and Hairspray (2007).
But after starring in the 2006 flick She’s the Man – in which she plays a girl who disguises herself as a boy so she can play soccer for her high school team – Amanda says she “went into a deep depression for four to six months because I didn’t like how I looked when I was a boy”.
Although she started smoking dagga at 16, it wasn’t until she hit her mid-twenties that her true partying began, Amanda adds.
Her alcohol and substance abuse led to her often forgetting her lines when on set.
After
attending the premiere of Easy A (2010), in which she played the villain
opposite Emma Stone, Amanda knew it was time to quit when she saw herself on
screen.
“I literally couldn’t stand my appearance in that movie and I didn’t like my performance,” she recalls. “I was absolutely convinced I needed to stop acting after seeing it.”
Amanda’s conservatorship started in 2014 when she was involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric treatment facility in California after several run-ins with the law.
Rumours of substance abuse were confirmed in 2012 when she was arrested for two hit-and-runs and drunk driving. The following year she trended on Twitter for all the wrong reasons.
While under the influence of drugs, Amanda tweeted that she wanted rapper Drake to “murder” her vagina.
“I’m really ashamed and embarrassed with the things I said,” she later said in an interview with Paper magazine.
“I can’t turn back time but if I could, I would. Everything I worked my whole life to achieve, I kind of ruined it all through Twitter. It’s definitely not Twitter’s fault – it’s my own fault.”
Over
the past few years, the former actress has sought help at various treatment
centres but last year again showed signs of mental instability.
In 2020 she and fiancé Paul Michael (29), whom she’d met in rehab, announced they were expecting a baby by sharing a now-deleted picture of an ultrasound to Instagram.
But two months later Amanda’s attorney told People magazine that she wasn’t pregnant. Esquibias later released a statement asking for privacy on behalf of the former star as she sought “treatment for ongoing mental-health issues”.
Now things
seem to be going better.
Amanda is living close the beach and pursuing a second degree from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) after graduating in 2019, according to Esquibias.
She’s now shifting her focus to business, her attorney adds.
“Amanda is entrepreneurial. She’s investigating fragrances. She’s now considering perfume in addition to a clothing line. But don’t get too excited. She’s still a student at FIDM earning her degree.”
Sources: dailymail.co.uk, people.com, people.com, usmagazine.com, refinery29.com
