Former child star Amanda Bynes was placed on a psychiatric hold after she was found wandering naked through the streets of Los Angeles early Sunday morning. Bynes flagged down a car and told the driver she was coming down from a psychotic episode and later called the police herself, TMZ reported.
Police provided support to Bynes and determined she needed to be placed on a 5150 psych hold, TMZ continued. It added that Bynes was fortunately not hurt, a blessing considering her mental state and also the undisclosed area of Los Angeles in which she was reportedly found.
As described by the Orange County government website, “5150 is the number of the section of the Welfare and Institutions Code, which allows an adult who is experiencing a mental health crisis to be involuntarily detained for a 72-hour psychiatric hospitalization when evaluated to be a danger to others, or to himself or herself, or gravely disabled.”
TMZ noted that Amanda Bynes had just recently ended a 9-year conservatorship, which has been described as “a legal structure in which a person’s personal, economic, and legal decision-making power is ceded to others.” TMZ wrote:
It was almost one year to the day when Amanda’s 9-year conservatorship was officially terminated. Amanda’s mother was her conservator starting back in 2013 when it was clear she was having issues with her mental health — she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After a series of bizarre incidents — including one where she set her neighbor’s driveway on fire, almost engulfing her dog in flames — she was sent to a psychiatric ward for treatment.
“Amanda was placed under conservatorship back in 2013, when it became clear that she was struggling with her mental health,” TMZ wrote in 2022 when she was released from her conservatorship.
“She had a string of bizarre episodes, including one when she set her neighbor’s driveway on fire. AB attributed the episodes to bipolar disorder and also opened up about her addiction to Adderall … but has since gotten help. Amanda says, she’s been sober for several years now, and she surely seems to be doing a whole lot better,” TMZ continued.
It seems conservatorships, while still not the norm, are nevertheless more common than thought. No doubt, early exposure to fame wreaks havoc on a person’s sense of reality and the lifestyle of the Hollywood elite are often too much for people to handle. That much seems made clear by the drug addiction accompanying Bynes’ situation.
In addition to Bynes, Britney Spears is perhaps the most famous celebrity to have entered into a conservatorship. For 13 years, her father and a team of other conservators managed not only her career, but her spending, communications, and personal decisions.
Variety noted in 2021 when her legal situation was near resolution, saying that Spears advocated for herself to end the arrangement after feeling isolated, exploited, and abused for too long.
“Spears described how she had been isolated, medicated, financially exploited, and emotionally abused. She assigned harsh blame to the California legal system, which she said let it all happen,” Variety wrote.
“The conservatorship was instituted by Spears’s family—in part out of real concerns about her mental health, people close to the family said. But the family was divided by money and fame, and Spears, in an underregulated part of the legal system, was stripped of her rights. She has fought for years to get them back,” Variety continued.
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