How Hollywood wild child Amanda Bynes battled drug abuse, drink driving and a Britney Spears-style ‘conservatorship’
AS Britney Spears fought against her dad controlling her life, away from the spotlight another former child star was battling for her own freedom.
Amanda Bynes — once hailed as “the new Cameron Diaz” and tipped to be Hollywood’s next romcom queen — has also been under a conservatorship for the last nine years.
But yesterday a judge finally granted the 35-year-old former child star the right to make her own personal, medical and financial decisions once more without mum Lynn overseeing her affairs.
It came nearly a decade after the actress had one of the most distressing breakdowns in showbiz, which saw her driving drunk, posting vile messages about celebs, falsely accusing her dad of sexual abuse and setting fire to her own trousers.
The star of teen comedy What A Girl Wants said: “In the last several years, I have been working hard to improve my health so that I can live and work independently, and I will continue to prioritise my well-being.”
“I would like to thank my lawyer and my parents for their support.”
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In chilling echoes of Britney, Amanda had shaved off half her hair, posted revealing photos online, had run-ins with the law and was taken to a psychiatric ward.
But unlike the Baby One More Time singer, Amanda seems to consider the conservatorship vital to keeping her safe after a serious mental breakdown caused by smoking too much cannabis, overdoing prescription medicines and a having a distorted obsession with her looks.
Her showbiz career started at the age of seven, when her dentist dad Rick entered her into a stand-up show in Los Angeles.
Three years later, talent spotters hired her for a kids’ TV sketch show called All That.
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She was so popular that Nickelodeon created her own programme The Amanda Show, which secured the highest viewing figures in its time slot for six to 11-year-olds.
Her parents tried their best to shield Amanda from the corrosive effects of celebrity, insisting she tidied her room in Thousand Oaks, California, every morning.
As a result Amanda earned a reputation for being dedicated, reliable and undemanding.
Shawn Levy, the director of her first movie Big Fat Liar in 2002, described her as “an absolute original” due to her comic timing.
Her own sitcom What I Like About You and the movie What A Girl Wants, with Colin Firth playing her on screen dad, quickly followed.
But it seems that fame wasn’t what Amanda had hoped for, with her admitting: “I like not to be recognized.”
It was playing a girl pretending to be a boy in the 2006 hit She’s The Man, opposite Channing Tatum, that seemed to really affact her.
She later said: “I went into a deep depression for four to six months because I didn’t like how I looked when I was a boy.”
Like many kids’ TV stars, such as Miley Cyrus, she was keen to escape her family-friendly image.
After scoring more successes with movie musical Hairspray, which starred John Travolta, and high school comedy Easy A, playing alongside Emma Stone, she ditched her agents in the hope of finding more serious parts.
Reportedly, she told one studio executive: `”I’m not getting the Lindsay Lohan roles.”
Sadly, she took on the Lohan role of getting into trouble with the law and abusing drugs.
Having posed for a raunchy Maxim magazine cover, Amanda landed the part of a babysitter in a comedy about wife swapping couples called Hall Pass with Owen Wilson.
But she hadn’t learned her lines and was dropped from the movie in 2010.
Crashed car into Hollywood cops
Shortly afterwards she announced her retirement, tweeting: “Being an actress isn’t as fun as it may seem.”
In truth the supposedly prim and proper star had been smoking cannabis from the age of 16 and had also taken cocaine and ecstasy.
She also admitted that she “ abused Adderall” — a drug for ADHD which she would chew in her trailer during film shoots.
Amanda said: “It absolutely changed my perception of things.”
Her sweet-natured image was finally shattered in 2012 when she drove her black BMW into the rear of a police car at a crossroads in Hollywood and refused to take a breath test.
Immediately after getting out of the police station, Amanda went partying with her pals, ending up at the notorious Chateau Marmont.
Bizarrely, she tweeted the then US President, saying: “Hey BarackObama — I don’t drink. Please fire the cop who arrested me. I also don’t hit and run. The end.”
Half a year later, Amanda’s Beemer was impounded after she was caught driving while her licence was suspended.
When the police tried to search her apartment in New York, they claimed she threw a bong for smoking cannabis out of the window.
Friends thought she should go into rehab, but she refused.
Pal Jonathan Jaxson said: “Her drug problem is far worse than Lindsay’s — and she’s in a lower place than Britney.”
The troubled star tweeted vile comments, such as telling Rihanna that “Chris Brown beat you because you’re not pretty enough,” and called Miley Cyrus “ugly.”
There were reports that Amanda covered electronic devices, fearing she was being spied on, and spray-painted her windows black.
Body image appears to have been a source of Amanda’s problems.
She tweeted about wanting to reduce her weight to just seven stone and claimed she had a nose job.
Her erratic behaviour also included paying a taxi driver to take her across the US from LA to New York and failing to pay hotel bills.
Set fire to her trousers
Everything came to a head in the summer of 2013 when Amanda set fire to her trousers on a driveway not far from her childhood home using a “little red gas tank”.
It was also reported that the distraught star went to an off-licence to wash her pet dog after accidentally drenching it in petrol.
The authorities sent her to Hillmont Psychiatric Center in California where she was diagnosed as schizophrenic and bipolar.
After months of trying to secure a conservatorship, mum Lynn was awarded temporary control of Amanda’s affairs in August 2013.
A spell in rehab appeared to get her back on the straight and narrow, but a year later she was arrested for driving under the influence.
More outrageous acts followed. She was accused of stealing clothes from a store and then posted false allegations that her dad had molested her when she was a child.
Distraught Lynn said: “I am heartbroken. Rick has been the best father and husband a family can ask for. He has never abused Amanda or our other children.
“These allegations stem from Amanda’s mental state.”
A day later Amanda admitted she had made up the allegations and blamed “the microchip in my brain” for making her “say those things.”
A judge ordered a second spell in psychiatric care and Lynn was given control of Amanda’s £4million fortune.
But with Amanda refusing support and claiming to be homeless, the family considered giving up all responsibility.
She signed up for a fashion course and moved back in with her parents — but there were times when it was clear her life was still badly wrong.
Two years ago Amanda posted a photo of an ultrasound scan before her lawyer later said she was not pregnant.
Her parents were also worried about her plan to marry Paul Michael, a recovering addict who she had met at Alcoholics Anonymous.
But recently, things have been looking up. Amanda is getting the heart she had tattooed on her face removed, and has been living in a “community for women in need.”
Now that she is free, she has plans to finish her degree and hopes to start a fragrance line.
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As for her parents, they couldn’t be happier to see her set free.
A source said: “They are so proud of how far she’s come.”
