15 Craziest Amanda Bynes Moments: A Timeline and Analysis

Amanda Bynes, the child star least likely to succumb to a dark, downward spiral, has been slowly disintegrating, much to our dismay, horror and (unfortunately) morbid curiosity. We’ve been watching Amanda Bynes self-destruct like a car crash happening in slow motion, over and over again. What exactly happened? Did Amanda crumble under the pressures of Hollywood? Did she lose herself among crowds of evil-doers? Did someone just inject her with crazy one night? Is this all a publicity stunt craftily designed in order to revitalize her career?

Mara Wilson (most famously known for her role as Matilda in Matilda) recently wrote this amazing and poignant explanation as to why child stars can end up going insane. She states that “not many child starts make it out of Hollywood alive or sane, and at any given time there are at least three former ones having very public breakdowns.” She goes on to explain that in so many instances, parents either have complete control of children who have no desire to act, or no control at all. Child stars are sometimes subjected to sexual abuse and are exploited by Hollywood and other evil people. Child stars are so used to the attention given when they are adorable that the minute they hit puberty, Hollywood essentially ostracizes them, making them feel five times uglier and more awkward than the normal pre-teen. They are treated as products and once the product becomes outdated, then they are discarded and traded in a for a newer model, like an iPhone. Basically, child stars are destined for failure. Look at Macaulay Culkin. Michael Jackson. Lindsay Lohan. Some have made it out alive and even succeed after a few rough patches (Drew Barrymore) but a lot turned to drugs, became social recluses and lashed out in crazy ways.

Amanda Bynes, as normal as she originally seemed, fits the stereotype. She started acting at a really young age and then hit a plateau. She probably lost a lot of attention, so she started rebelling in her own way and maybe experiencing things she couldn’t before. She never had a real education, so her options to do anything else were limited; she was suddenly given a lot of freedom and the combination of freedom and money is totally dangerous. In approximately one year, Bynes managed to go from beloved former child/teen actress to fizzled out mess.

Let’s start from the beginning phases of crazy and go from there.

15. Amanda gets her first DUI

Some time in April of 2012, Amanda sideswiped a car and got charged with a DUI.

The first of many super uncharacteristic maneuvers, Amanda shocked her fan base and even her co-workers. A source stated, “This DUI was definitely just a serious lapse in judgement. She hit a wall personally and professionally [in 2008]….I think she’s been a little lost since then.” (People).

Four days after the DUI, Amanda went out driving again and allegedly rear-ended someone on the 101 and drove away. A few months later, she was accused of two more hit and runs.

14. Amanda tweets to President Barack Obama

Because the president of our country has nothing else better to do than dig a former child star out of some legal woes.

Bynes tweeted: Hey @BarackObama…I don’t drink. Please fire the cop who arrested me. I also don’t hit and run. The end.

Needless to say, I don’t think she got a re-tweet from the prez.

13. Amanda gets caught smoking pot in her car on a suspended license

By this point we understood Amanda needed to a) go back to driving school, and b) lay off the booze before driving home. But we didn’t actually think Bynes smoked pot and “drove around aimlessly for hours,” which is what she was witnessed doing. Inside her car, the paparazzi found carelessly strewn about marijuana, old food, wrappers and trash, as though she had been living out of her car.

12. Girl gets weird at the gym

Apparently halfway through a spin class, Amanda’s trainer had to kick her out because she was acting bizarrely. And by bizarre, I mean jumping off her bike and walking around in circles, taking her shirt off to reveal a lacy bra instead of a functional sports bra and re-applying makeup in front of a mirror. It was around this time that she was frequently spotted holding up conversations with herself.

11. Amanda hangs out in a dressing room for two hours

Amanda went shopping at a boutique, grabbed some clothes and tried them on for a couple of hours. She literally shuffled around in the dressing room for 1.5 hours until a sales associate had to call someone and ask for help because she wasn’t sure if Amanda was OD’ing or what. A half hour after that, she emerged, bought some clothes, forgot she had the store’s bikini on and had to pay for that, too.

10. Her management team drops her

The former actress, at this point, is decidedly a lost cause, and is abandoned by her agent, publicist, and entertainment lawyer. But all is seemingly hunky dory to Amanda, because she made a statement saying, “I am doing amazing… I am retired as an actor. I am moving to New York to launch my career. I am going to do a fashion line. I am not talking about being arrested for DUI because I don’t drink, and I don’t drink and drive. It is all false.” So begins the denial.

9. Amanda reveals the New Amanda via Twitter

By now, this photo is legend; it features Amanda Bynes in a MAC ad gone awry. Seemingly, Amanda’s natural locks are gone and replaced with a curly wig, her cheeks are pierced, and the girl’s got some snow-gear chic look going on. The old Amanda is dead and gone and replaced by a heavily painted woman who clearly got some pro-tips from Snooki.

8.  Amanda starts walking around New York dressed in sweatpants and a blanket covering her head

I’m obviously not a celebrity, but I’m pretty positive there are other ways to step out into the world without drawing attention. And that is not either a) covering your head with a blanket, which I hope you can at least see through, or b) wearing sweatpants, socks and sandals in public. I am all for comfort, but it looked like Amanda hadn’t seen daylight in a week.

7. Homegirl tweets about Drake fantasies and eating disorder

Amanda’s confession that she wants Drake to “murder” her vagina is pretty creepy, but the fact that she frequently mentions her weight, eating disorder and now nose job is just scary. Amanda started posting blurred selfies in bathrooms that look like public restrooms, claiming that she needed to lose twenty more pounds. She also chastised magazines for posting “ugly” pictures of her old self.

6.  Amanda posts a bizarre video of her getting ready to “go out”

Except she’s just holding her iPhone up to the mirror as she winks at herself, nods to her reflection to the beat of some electro, and puckers her lips. What. Is. Going. On. See the full clip here.

5. Amanda discovers the re-tweet button

Not knowing that most of her Twitter followers find her self-destruction hilarious, Amanda went nuts and started re-posting tweets by alleged fans who Photoshopped her face into pictures of dogs or with Drake. This is really sad because the girl does not realize these people are taunting her and encouraging her maddening behavior.

4. Amanda takes topless pictures of herself

To top off the strange photos of her in blue lipstick and disheveled blonde wig, Amanda posted a few topless pictures where she is only wearing ripped tights and posing in her desolate bathroom. Her racy photo captions say things like: “About to put on Makeup! I weigh 135, I’ve gained weight! I need to be 100 lbs!”

3. Amanda apparently throws a bong out the window and gets arrested

Last week, Amanda supposedly threw her glass bong out of her 36th floor apartment in New York because someone called the cops on her. She got arrested for reckless endangerment and was put in a mental hospital; although a lot of people were relieved, this was a short-lived intervention. No one could prove Bynes actually threw anything out the window, bong or not, nor do they have any evidence of her being on drugs. However, she made a dazzling appearance in court.

2. Angry Amanda Bashes Rihanna and a few others

I’m not sure what Amanda does with her day when she’s not threatening to sue magazines or calling celebrities ugly, and I don’t want to know. A week ago though, Amanda went over the top and said some terrible, unwarranted things about Rihanna. She tweeted:

“Chris Brown beat you because you’re not pretty enough. No one wants to be your lover so you call everyone and their mother.”

Rihanna brushed it off with: “Ya see what happens when they cancel Intervention?”

Later, Amanda deleted her tweets and claimed this was “mocked up,” she and Rihanna are good friends, and that she’ll probably be in one of her music videos soon.

A couple days after that, Bynes goes on to insult model Chrissy Teigan and Lance Bass, calling them “ugly” because they offered some help via Twitter. Which apparently is the only way to reach her these days.

1. Even Courtney Love is at a loss. COURTNEY LOVE.

When Courtney Love is flabbergasted by someone’s behavior, you know it’s serious. A few days ago, Courtney tweeted “pull it together dude” to Amanda, and of course Amanda Bynes fired back with her “ugly” shtick, to which Courtney replied:  “Then there’s this whole thing about…Disney kids [Bynes is technically a Nickelodeon kid, but okay]-they’re not educated, look at how she she writes. I’m not educated either, but at least I’m autodidactic. At lease I try to read Flaubert, do you know what I mean?…….And they have no parental infrastructure, and after they’re not nubile anymore or useful they’re sort of waylaid…”

This ties back with Mara Wilson’s insight on child stars. Their parents pushed them. Hollywood created them. Hollywood destroyed them. And it’s really, really sad.

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