There may be another twist in the continuing saga of Amanda Bynes, and, sadly, this one doesn't sound too good: According to TMZ, Amanda Bynes' parents reportedly heard of her DUI arrest from the media, and, currently, have no idea where she is. This is, of course, a TMZ article, so it's always wise to take their sensationalized rumors with a grain of salt — but it's hard to deny that the details aren't worrisome:
...Amanda moved out of her parents' house once the conservatorship ended earlier this month … but many people close to Amanda feel it was a terrible mistake not to extend it. We're told Amanda is smoking a lot of weed and is off her anti-psychotic meds for Schizophrenia and bipolarity.
If it's true, this is terrible news to hear, especially after the seemingly better news that Bynes' DUI was actually due to her driving under the influence of Adderall, a drug she has a prescription for. It wouldn't make it OK, of course, but it would make the case seem a bit more in her favor than driving under the influence of alcohol world — especially after all the progress she had made in the past year attending fashion school, and getting herself healthy again.
Again, however, this all currently a rumor — and, in some ways, really indicative of the continuing obsession the media has with young, troubled stars like Bynes and others like her when they're at their worst.
If there's one thing I've learned during my time covering Bynes' very publicized health and legal issues, it's that the rumor mill loves her. Last year, during her first, unfortunately public meltdown, the media more or less hounded her to continue what was often called "the crazy" — every time she posted a new Instagram, tweet, or video clip showcasing her worryingly erratic behavior, the blogosphere went wild and proceeded to break the new material down like it was something to be analyzed, and not just another piece of evidence that she was a woman desperately in need of help and medical intervention.
It wasn't that she didn't seem to like the attention that was the worst part, though — because she did, and she often sought it out herself — but it was, instead, the fact that we in the media were all witness to her downfall, and it seemed that no one was really doing much other than writing about with morbid curiosity. (I know this fairly firsthand: Two of my own articles on Bynes' behavior published on Complex were called out by Bynes herself on Twitter for some unknown reason, and the source of two lengthy rants in which she wasted no time threatening to sue the magazine, and also calling the entire staff "ugly" multiple times.)
Following her recovery, there was not even a peep of news about Bynes before this — and why was that? We thought she was healthy, and doing well. Now that she's back in the headlines for receiving a DUI, the tabloids are going mad with stories advertising "new information!" every hour, almost like there's this fascination with kicking her while she's down. We saw this all before, when she was arrested in California and put under involuntary psychiatric hold: The stories offering new rumors about her condition were plentiful, and a good handful of them actually turned out to not be even close to the truth.
This is extremely unfortunate, and, in my opinion, proof that we shouldn't be following this Bynes story so closely until anything is truly confirmed.
Not only does hypothesizing and spreading rumors about a clearly troubled woman end up being detrimental to her health, but it feeds into the public's incessant need to consume media chronicling celebrities at their worst — to not only see their unfortunately public issues and problems as they happen, but to also encourage it by reading all the information they can about it. It's wrong, it's disrespectful, and we shouldn't let it happen anymore.
