On Tuesday, March 22nd, former Nickelodeon star Amanda Bynes, 35, was freed from her nine-year conservatorship and granted full control over her financial, medical and personal decisions. Judge Roger L. Lund fulfilled Bynes’s termination request at the Ventura County Superior Court. Bynes is known for her roles in The Amanda Show, What a Girl Wants and Easy A — the final film she starred in prior to her retirement from acting in 2010.
Following her admission to a psychiatric facility in 2013, Lynn Bynes, the former actress’s mother, was appointed as her conservator. According to The New York Times, Bynes’s mother and psychiatrist both agreed that the She’s the Man star is capable of having agency over her medical and financial affairs. Bynes, who previously struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction, told Paper Magazine that she has maintained her sobriety for approximately four years.
The Superior Court of California defines a conservatorship as a court proceeding where a judge appoints an individual as a guardian of a conservatee, an adult incapable of taking care of themselves. One can be designated conservator over a conservatee’s estate or person — their life decisions, medical care and living situations. Spouses, parents and siblings of the conservatee are most likely to be assigned protectors.
Although conservatorships can save lives, they also can also foster abuse of power. Bynes’s conservatorship was terminated following pop singer, Britney Spears’s battle for freedom earlier this year. Spears’s father, James “Jamie” Spears, had control over the singer’s estate, interactions with her children, and reproductive rights since 2008, as noted by BBC. According to Rolling Stone, the “Toxic” singer alleged that she was a victim of conservatorship abuse, going as far as to compare her situation to that of a sex-trafficking victim. The #FreeBritney movement took social media by storm and introduced the word “conservatorship” to the average person’s vocabulary. According to Billboard, other celebrities formerly or currently in conservatorships include Brian Wilson, founder of the Beach Boys, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell and actor Mickey Rooney.
Conservatees often consist of elderly individuals and mentally-disabled adults. So, why do celebrities that do not fit into these categories have conservatorships? The answer lies in a need to berate and control celebrities. As a result of blatant sexism, Hollywood “it girls,” such as Bynes and Spears, have been held to an unattainable standard of perfection while simultaneously being torn down by the media. One cannot forget Spears’s publicly aired head-shaving incident, which made her the laughingstock of 2007. Tabloids such as Life&Style and Daily News described both stars as “insane and on the run” and “teeter[ing] on the edge of a breakdown.” A conservatorship can seem like an easy fix to this extensive problem. Bynes’s mother and Spears’s father aimed to prevent negative publicity and uphold their daughters’ perfect images through means of medical and financial control. In the process of doing so, they ultimately failed their daughters.
However, there is solace at the end of the red carpet. Today, Spears is engaged to Sam Asghari, her partner of five years, and she celebrated her 40th birthday in freedom. Bynes is currently studying at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. According to The Daily Mail, she is also planning to release a fragrance line soon.
“In the last several years, I have been working hard to improve my health so that I can live and work independently,” Bynes said in a statement through her attorney “…I will continue to prioritize my well-being in this next chapter.”