Is Amanda Bynes crazy? Why is she trapped in conservatorship?
Millennials feel a crazy amount of nostalgia when they hear the name Amanda Bynes. They remember flocking to Nickelodeon to watch her hilariously answer questions, and they also remember celebrating her achievement when she got her own show.
Later generations may not remember her as fondly. They’re more likely to remember her as the woman who tweeted at Drake to murder her vagina. They had stopped laughing at the characters she portrayed & started laughing at her.
Bynes continued to face public scrutiny for her increasingly unstable behavior. A judge finally placed her in a conservatorship with her mother. What does this mean for Bynes’s mental health? Does she really need to be in a conservatorship?
Rise to fame
Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider discovered Amanda Bynes at a crazy young age. Bynes was attending a comedy camp at the Los Angeles Laugh Factory. Her Carol Burnett-inspired comedy mixed with her natural charm made her an instant hit.
Her first gig was in a segment called “Ask Ashley!” on the hit show All That. Her popularity promoted her from an ensemble cast to starring in The Amanda Show. This was only the beginning of Bynes’s success.
Her commercial film success started when she starred in Big Fat Liar with Frankie Muniz. It continued with films like She’s the Man, Hairspray, & Easy A with Emma Stone. But like many child celebrities, her road to fame would soon become a path of infamy.
Public struggles
2012 marked the beginning of Amanda Bynes’s descent into what some would call ‘crazy’ behavior. In April, she was charged with driving under the influence. In May 2013, she was charged with marijuana possession & reckless endangerment. Facing very little punishment, both cases were eventually dropped.
She was placed in a seventy-two-hour-hold for a mental health evaluation after allegedly setting fire to a stranger’s property. While both of her parents filed for conservatorship, it was given temporarily to her mother, Lynn Bynes.
Lynn was granted conservatorship of Amanda after the actress took to Twitter to accuse her father, Rick, of sexual abuse. She was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In August 2018, Lynn’s temporary conservatorship was extended to August 2020.
Father knows best
The general public is no stranger to a former child star’s adult display of mental instability landing them in a conservatorship. In fact, some may argue the very term only entered the public consciousness because of Britney Spears.
In January 2008, a California court placed Britney under the conservatorship of her father, Jamie. The Princess of Pop had displayed multiple worrisome behaviors. When those behaviors started including her children, the conservatorship became more strict.
However, the decision eventually became more harmful to Britney than helpful. She started accusing Jamie of taking advantage of her finances & trying to control her. While he eventually stepped down from the role, it left some re-considering the legitimacy of any conservatorship.
Mother knows better
Amanda Bynes isn’t “crazy” – she’s struggling like so many others. But the courts have deemed her in need of a conservatorship due to her increasingly erratic behavior. So, they’ve extended her mother’s role as conservator until the next hearing in March 2023.
Bynes’s situation is similar to Spears’s. She’s a child star who gained mature success and then ended up with a parent as a conservator after displaying erratic behavior. Unlike Spears’s conservatorship, though, Bynes’s mother has respected her agency as an adult.
In 2018, Bynes earned her Associates of Art degree in Merchandise Product Development & announced her intentions to continue pursuing higher education. She’s currently engaged to Paul Michael, who she met in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
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Do you think Amanda Bynes should still be under conservatorship? Let us know in the comments below!
