Amanda Bynes Is ‘Excited’ For Normalcy After Her Conservatorship Ends
After nearly nine years, Amanda Bynes is expected to be free from her conservatorship. A hearing on Tuesday morning (March 22) will likely make the termination official. Yesterday, a judge issued a tentative ruling, stating that the conservatorship is “no longer required,” setting the stage for the end of the court-ordered arrangement that the former child star was placed under in 2013.
“I’m excited for her. She is excited,” Bynes’ attorney, David A. Esquibias, told Variety ahead of the hearing. “We’re all excited and we’re all anxiously looking forward to Amanda living a life as a private and normal citizen.” Bynes won’t be present at Tuesday’s hearing, her attorney told the publication.
In 2013, Amanda’s parents Rick Bynes and Lynn Organ petitioned the court for a conservatorship when their famous daughter allegedly set a driveway on fire and was hospitalized on an involuntary psychiatric hold. In 2014, her mother was granted a full conservatorship, becoming her official conservator.
Bynes’ parents have both been “very supportive” throughout the entire conservatorship, Esquibias says, and have helped her work towards a positive transition into the real world, which was the goal from the beginning of the legal arrangement. Last month, when Bynes filed to terminate the conservatorship, a family attorney for her mother said that the conservatorship was always “intended to be temporary” and stated that “Lynn is extremely happy and thrilled and proud of Amanda and ready to terminate this conservatorship based on the hard work Amanda has done.”
Currently, Bynes is a student at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising where she is pursuing a bachelor’s degree. Since 2020, she had been living in a structured community for women in need. The facility typically addresses drug, alcohol or substance dependency issues, but also medical issues, which a source close to Bynes says is the reason she had been living in the facility.
“She didn’t necessarily have an addiction,” an insider said. “She had a medical condition that required supervision and required assistance and education.” In 2014, Bynes displayed erratic behavior on Twitter, posting a series of tweets accusing her father of abuse; she then walked back the comments, saying she had a microchip in her brain, which caused her to tweet the false claims. Shortly after, Bynes was admitted to an involuntary emergency psychiatric hold at a California facility. Around that time, Bynes tweeted that she was diagnosed “bipolar and manic depressive,” explaining that she was taking medicine and seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist on a weekly basis.
She is now 35 and engaged and is focused on a normal life, her attorney said. Bynes recently joined Instagram and has updated her fans on her conservatorship. “My court date is coming up in two weeks,” Bynes recently said in a video message on social media. “I want to thank you all so much for your love and support.”
“Besides normalcy as a person and a student, I know that she is looking forward to what her next step is going to be,” Esquibias said. “One of the things that she’s talking about is a fragrance line and possibly a clothing line, while she is concentrating on school. She is very creative, so she’s trying to find an outlet for that.”
When it comes to returning to the acting world, Esquibias said, “I have not heard her say that she’s interested in returning to becoming an actress, but I wouldn’t rule that out. She has a new life ahead of her and she is so young… She was a great actress. I’m sure many people would love to see her return to acting.”
