Amanda Bynes Is Free!

Another American sweetheart is free. A California judge ruled on Tuesday to end the conservatorship of Amanda Bynes, which has controlled her life and finances since 2013. “She’s done everything the court has asked over a long period of time,” Ventura County Superior Court Judge Roger L. Lund said upon the ruling.

The conservatorship, led by Bynes’s mother Lynn Bynes, allowed Bynes’s parents to oversee her medical and life decisions, and sometimes, financial decisions, as the former actress publicly dealt with addiction and mental health struggles. Bynes’s lawyer David A. Esquibias told The New York Times of the agreement that, “For the most part, mom has allowed Amanda to live freely. She never wanted to be conserved, but she understood why.”

Anyone paying attention to pop culture in the 2010s knows that Bynes’s actions during that time were chaotic. After nearly two decades of work as a film and television actress, Bynes was a household name and quickly became tabloid fodder when she was a part of two hit-and-run accidents in 2012. Following a 2012 incident where she was accused of drunk driving after crashing into a L.A. County sheriff deputy’s car, she was convicted in 2014 of reckless driving. In 2013, she set a small fire in her driveway, resulting in a psychiatric hospital stay; that same year, Bynes was charged with reckless endangerment and marijuana possession after she tossed a bong out a 36th floor window in Manhattan. The charges were dismissed and sealed after she went to counseling.

Now, the 35-year-old actor-turned-fashion student now lives in a community of women working to “transition into autonomous lifestyle,” according to court documents. Bynes, who graduated with her Associate’s of Art degree in Merchandise Product Development from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in 2019, is currently working on getting her Bachelor’s Degree from the same school in California.

While her conservatorship garnered much less attention than Britney Spears’ awful situation, it’s great to hear that Bynes can again enjoy full control over her life. Whether that means she’ll try to get Drake’s attention again, get back into acting, or simply just go to class remains to be seen.