Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. Hello Spillers, it's Laura
Speaker 2: Brodnick here. So we need to talk about Amanda Bynes,
Speaker 2: who was a star on the Nickelodeon channel and a
Speaker 2: huge star of so many movies in the two thousands.
Speaker 2: You might know her from Water Girl Wants Hair Spray.
Speaker 2: She's the man. She was really on top of the
Speaker 2: world in terms of fan base and work, and then
Speaker 2: things in her life started to take a bit of
Speaker 2: an unexpected turn. And this is a story you're about
Speaker 2: to hear on another Mamma Mia podcast that we've dropped
Speaker 2: into your feed today. Extraordinary Stories. So this podcast takes
Speaker 2: a very deep look into Amanda's rise to fame from
Speaker 2: her childhood to the challenges that she faced both personally
Speaker 2: and in the industry. And it also really deep dives
Speaker 2: into how the tabloids treated her and you know, the
Speaker 2: different stories that some media outlets were telling compared to
Speaker 2: what was actually happening by high in the scenes. So
Speaker 2: if you want to know more about Amanda Bayne's story,
Speaker 2: enjoy this episode. And we will link to part two
Speaker 2: of it in the show notes.
Speaker 3: Four port of a gasoline tank on fire and a
Speaker 3: draveway avenue a daily fabulist at more in part.
Speaker 1: It's eight pm on a late July evening in twenty
Speaker 1: thirteen summer in California in Leafy Quiet, Thousand Oaks, a
Speaker 1: well to do town just north of la Residents have
Speaker 1: run outside their homes to see a suburban driveway engulfed
Speaker 1: in flames. The blaze is burning hot and high. Flames
Speaker 1: are shooting two meters into the air from a plastic
Speaker 1: tank that's beginning to melt.
Speaker 3: And the gasoline tank. Yeah, there's hire. It's all on
Speaker 3: a gasoline tank yet. I don't know if there's any
Speaker 3: more gasoline in it. But no, thanks, everybody is nobody injured, No,
Speaker 3: no one's injured. How close is it to the house.
Speaker 3: It's decently close. It's about I would say five feet.
Speaker 1: One witness sees a woman lying down on the footpath
Speaker 1: near the road. She has a long, disheveled blonde wig
Speaker 1: on and she's holding a small ginger dog. The left
Speaker 1: leg of her tracksuit pant is black burnt. She gets
Speaker 1: up and tries to hail a cab, but the witness
Speaker 1: stops her. She calls out that she has to go.
Speaker 1: The young woman says her dog is covered in petrol
Speaker 1: and has been singed in the fire, so she walks
Speaker 1: down the street and into a nearby bottle shop. Seemingly
Speaker 1: unaware of the commotion around her. The woman heads out
Speaker 1: to the back of the store and tries to wash
Speaker 1: the petrel off her small dog. The owner tells her
Speaker 1: to leave, and moments later she's picked up by police,
Speaker 1: who have some questions. What was she doing there? Did
Speaker 1: she know the people who lived at that house? Did
Speaker 1: she start the fire? Why would she do that? None
Speaker 1: of her answers make sense.
Speaker 4: She got done for a dui for John Counder, the
Speaker 4: influence drive while under the influence drug possession, and then
Speaker 4: it was when she led a fire in a neighbour's
Speaker 4: backyard driveway or something had never really been explained why
Speaker 4: she did how she came to do that.
Speaker 1: The woman in the disheveled blonde wig at the center
Speaker 1: of the petrol fire is Amanda Vines. She's a twenty
Speaker 1: seven year old actor, once revered as comedy's next big thing,
Speaker 1: A young hopeful thought to have grown into a rare
Speaker 1: success story in a city of child stars gone rogue.
Speaker 1: But this latest crisis wasn't an isolated affair. Amanda Biynes
Speaker 1: had been publicly spiraling for months, and in private, her
Speaker 1: life had been unraveling for years. Welcome to episode one
Speaker 1: of extraordinary Stories, What happened to Amanda Bynes in the
Speaker 1: midnor Amanda Vines was a proper star for years. The
Speaker 1: former Nickelodeon child actor was loved for her goofy antics
Speaker 1: on kids' TV and for her comedic chops in teen
Speaker 1: movie roles. But just as her career was starting to
Speaker 1: mature when she was landing her roles with Hollywood heavyweights,
Speaker 1: Amanda Vines dropped off the radar. But before she disappeared completely,
Speaker 1: an erratic series of events unfolded. Frequent arrests, stories of drugs, booze,
Speaker 1: unpredictable behavior sparked a whole new level of paparazzi frenzy
Speaker 1: around Amanda. Adding fuel to the fire was her social
Speaker 1: media presence. In twenty thirteen, there were months of chaotic tweeting,
Speaker 1: often pointedly and painfully aimed at other famous names, all
Speaker 1: signals of a woman prepared to burn bridges. I'm Emma
Speaker 1: Gillespie and this is extraordinary stories. If you were growing
Speaker 1: up in the early two thousands, you probably watched Nickelodeon
Speaker 1: on your living room TV, or you might have desperately
Speaker 1: begged your parents to get Old Star or Foxtel Australia
Speaker 1: as PayTV of the era so you could watch it.
Speaker 1: Or maybe went over to your mate's house after school
Speaker 1: because she had Foxtail. Maybe you binged as much as
Speaker 1: you could on family holidays if you were lucky enough
Speaker 1: to stay at a motel with one of those big
Speaker 1: os star signs outside. It's hard to imagine with the
Speaker 1: rise of subscription video on demand services, but in those days,
Speaker 1: kids TV channels like the Disney Channel and cut Her
Speaker 1: Network were everything, and the king of those channels Nickelodeon,
Speaker 1: Nick Nick, Nick.
Speaker 3: Nick Nicola, Nick Nickick Nick Nick.
Speaker 1: Colonia, SpongeBob, Square Fans, Rugrats, Fairly Odd Parents, Cat Dog,
Speaker 1: The Wild, Thornberries, so many. The list goes on, and
Speaker 1: we couldn't get enough of it. But for fans, the
Speaker 1: real draw cards of Nickelodeon's programming didn't stop at the cartoons.
Speaker 1: They were ensemble shows and sketch comedies that cast young
Speaker 1: up and coming actors, including a series called All That
Speaker 1: Keenan and Kell and later The Amanda Show. For the
Speaker 1: most part, Ananda Bynd's journey to fame is pretty typical
Speaker 1: of that child star narrative we've come to know. She
Speaker 1: was living a fairly normal life as the youngest of
Speaker 1: three kids with her parents in Oaks, California. She'd always
Speaker 1: loved performing and was in local stage productions. By age seven,
Speaker 1: Amanda's parents got her an agent and she'd started booking
Speaker 1: television commercials. Her big break, though, came when she was
Speaker 1: ten years old at a kid's comedy camp in LA
Speaker 1: when she was spotted by a Nickelodeon producer.
Speaker 5: My DearS al was blowing me, slow down, take it easy,
Speaker 5: take a breather.
Speaker 6: Hang a loose, chill out, take a break.
Speaker 5: Why did I wanted chick a?
Speaker 4: Bring you home?
Speaker 7: Want a school for.
Speaker 1: That's one of her first stand up gigs ever, And
Speaker 1: you can hear in this talk show interview from when
Speaker 1: she was twelve in nineteen ninety nine that even back
Speaker 1: then she had charisma and a big personality, which meant
Speaker 1: she could hold her own in the spotlight.
Speaker 5: And then there was like a graduation night, and that's
Speaker 5: where the producers of the show, like Brian Robinson Dan
Speaker 5: Schneider came on the show and they told me there
Speaker 5: and that was it.
Speaker 7: You just got discovered right after the comedy care Yeah.
Speaker 3: Your dad in show business. You say, he knows you well.
Speaker 5: He likes to do comedy and so, you know, I've
Speaker 5: always liked, liked doing comedy, so you know.
Speaker 3: He would he what does he do for a living.
Speaker 5: He's a dentist. So yeah, well my dad, you know,
Speaker 5: he makes everybody laugh.
Speaker 8: So that's school.
Speaker 5: So they don't like mind going to the dentist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna go to a commercial. You want to
Speaker 3: keep talking, you can keep talking, Okay, I want to
Speaker 3: talk to you more.
Speaker 7: Amanda Bynes, I'll be back with more of.
Speaker 1: But a few years after her role in the ensemble
Speaker 1: cast of All That, Amanda's big personality scored her something
Speaker 1: most performers don't see in the entire careers. She was
Speaker 1: plucked out and told by the Nickelodeon producers that they
Speaker 1: wanted to frame an entire series around her. She would
Speaker 1: have the starring role in her very own show, The
Speaker 1: Amanda Show. Laura Brodnick is the entertainment editor at Mamma
Speaker 1: Maya and the host of pop culture podcast This Bill.
Speaker 1: She says the ensemble show had broad appeal to millennials.
Speaker 2: So she would obviously come and host it almost like
Speaker 2: I guess very loosely to describe it as almost a
Speaker 2: kid's Saturday Night Live. So she would come out and
Speaker 2: do a bit of an opening oneolog with jokes. There
Speaker 2: would be sketches and skits where she would star as
Speaker 2: different characters. She would often bring the same character out
Speaker 2: multiple times so people got to know them. They would
Speaker 2: sometimes be guest stars, and it was this really kind
Speaker 2: of wholesome content that became the backbone of the Nickelodeon network,
Speaker 2: which at the time and I guess very much still
Speaker 2: is the main source of children's entertainment on TV.
Speaker 5: Oh Man, this is an excellent past silent Angels for Amanda.
Speaker 1: Amanda's fans related to her on screen persona never the
Speaker 1: mean girl or in the popular group. She had a
Speaker 1: down to earth quality that really struck a chord with
Speaker 1: her tween aged audience.
Speaker 2: Think there was just a wholesomeness to her. There was
Speaker 2: and also just her del livery. She had a really
Speaker 2: intense comic ability to make fun of herself and was
Speaker 2: a very good character actress, which is something that you
Speaker 2: really saw later on when she became a movie star
Speaker 2: as well, is that she was able to embody these characters.
Speaker 2: And they used to have a live audience for the
Speaker 2: Amanda Show, so when she came out, you could kind
Speaker 2: of see the audience would which was all kids pretty
Speaker 2: much up on their feet, cheering and smiling for her
Speaker 2: before she had even started her first joke. So once
Speaker 2: she kind of built up that cult following, and also
Speaker 2: that show began to replay and people would buy all
Speaker 2: the merchandise for it, it was almost like she became
Speaker 2: a brand, and that's why people just continually fell in
Speaker 2: love with her.
Speaker 1: Even though she's been out of the limelight for quite
Speaker 1: a while, there still seems to be an enduring affection
Speaker 1: from her fans for a time in their childhoods when
Speaker 1: they idolized Amanda. Here's what a bunch of millennials had
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 8: I was obsessed with Amanda Vines. I thought she was
Speaker 8: the queen of Nickelodeon, and I would literally sit in
Speaker 8: front of the TV and watch her religiously in the
Speaker 8: Amanda Show. I just thought she was so talented and
Speaker 8: so incredible because she would never fail to make me
Speaker 8: laugh no matter what character she was playing.
Speaker 9: I watched The Amanda Byn Show when I was around ten, eleven,
Speaker 9: and twelve, and I absolutely loved it because at the time,
Speaker 9: she just seemed like the most relatable girl on TV.
Speaker 9: It just seemed like you could be her friend, or
Speaker 9: she'd be your friend. She was funny. She wasn't afraid
Speaker 9: to make fun of herself or be a bit silly
Speaker 9: and goofy, which I think is exactly what you need
Speaker 9: at that time in your life.
Speaker 2: I never felt that Amanda was too cool or different
Speaker 2: from me. She had that thing that feels really special.
Speaker 4: It was like she was a young Jennifer Aniston.
Speaker 1: Even The show was a huge success for Nickelodeon and
Speaker 1: for Amanda, who quickly rose to child star status. As
Speaker 1: relatable as she was to kids, Amanda was also gaining
Speaker 1: serious star power, carving out of space herself as one
Speaker 1: of the original Nickelodeon stars the same place names like
Speaker 1: Ariana Grande, Melissa Joan Hart, and Emma Roberts got their starts.
Speaker 1: Though Amanda was young, she'd made a name for herself
Speaker 1: as a talent with serious comedic chops. Kathie Lee Giffard,
Speaker 1: a former host on a US morning TV show, worked
Speaker 1: with Amanda at the time and recalled how she had
Speaker 1: an old school quality to her acting.
Speaker 5: But you worked with.
Speaker 7: Her a long time ago, did I did when she
Speaker 7: had her Amanda Show on Nickelodeon, and found her to
Speaker 7: be so unbelievably refreshing in that for inst of all,
Speaker 7: she's so so talented, so funny. Working with her, I
Speaker 7: felt like it was like what Lucille Ball must have
Speaker 7: been like.
Speaker 3: Early on.
Speaker 7: It was that good, and her family was all around
Speaker 7: her and they all seemed very, very grounded.
Speaker 1: But after three seasons on the show, at age fifteen,
Speaker 1: Amanda was ready for something new. She told The New
Speaker 1: York Times that she knew she didn't want to be
Speaker 1: a Nickelodeon kid when she was thirty, and so she
Speaker 1: began the transition from child star into grown up, real
Speaker 1: life actor. In two thousand and two, Amanda made her
Speaker 1: debut in the children's adventure comedy Big Fat Liar, alongside
Speaker 1: Frankie MOONI is remember that kid from Malcolm in the
Speaker 1: Middle him, Amanda played his best friend, Slash Quirky sidekick,
Speaker 1: while he gave Paul Giamati, who played the bad guy,
Speaker 1: his comeuppance. Overall, it was a commercial success, but as
Speaker 1: Laura Brodnick says, it was Amanda's first leading role. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: when she really started to earn herself that industry cred.
Speaker 2: Her first kind of big leading role was in the
Speaker 2: two thousand and three movie What a Girl Wants, an
Speaker 2: absolute classics still to this day, I would say. And
Speaker 2: the interesting thing is is that even though she had
Speaker 2: that huge on screen TV fame, it doesn't always translate
Speaker 2: for actresses around that time into being able to actually
Speaker 2: anchor a movie and promote it. And the stakes are
Speaker 2: so much higher and there's much more money at stake.
Speaker 2: And even though the movie itself didn't get great reviews,
Speaker 2: like the critical reception wasn't great, what it did do
Speaker 2: was actually open quite strongly at the box office. I
Speaker 2: think it opened at number two at the time, which
Speaker 2: at the time those movie ratings before streaming services, that
Speaker 2: was a huge deal. The movie had to have success
Speaker 2: in the first week for it to be considered an
Speaker 2: overall success. So the fact that this smaller movie opened
Speaker 2: at number two was a big deal, and the reception
Speaker 2: to her in that leading role was pretty much hugely popular,
Speaker 2: so critics were saying, look, the movie's not that great,
Speaker 2: Paul Colin Firth's not that good, but Amanda Bynes is
Speaker 2: a movie star, and you saw her get a much
Speaker 2: bigger international audience, and also with the kind of older
Speaker 2: teenage young adult demographic who might not have seen The
Speaker 2: Amanda Show or maybe we're just a bit too old
Speaker 2: for Nickelodeon also fell in love with her in that movie,
Speaker 2: so it kind of cemented her as a box office
Speaker 2: star right out.
Speaker 3: Of the gate.
Speaker 1: Suddenly, Amanda Vines was everywhere, having scored dozen of nominations
Speaker 1: and wins at Teen Choice Awards. She landed another role
Speaker 1: in a Warner Brothers sitcom called What I Like About You,
Speaker 1: co starring with ninety soap star Jenny Garth from Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills nine O two one zero. From there, Amanda became
Speaker 1: part of a posse of young actresses rising through the
Speaker 1: Hollywood ranks. In two thousand and three, she and eight
Speaker 1: other teen starlets of the day posed for a Vanity
Speaker 1: Fair piece called Its Raining Teens.
Speaker 10: The photo shoot for the issue on stands Next Tuesday
Speaker 10: brought together the hottest most bankable teenage titans in the
Speaker 10: business get Getting the Tree from Mary Kate and Ashley
Speaker 10: to Amanda Vines, Hillary Duff to Mandy Moore. The shoot
Speaker 10: marked the first time most of these teen queens had
Speaker 10: ever met.
Speaker 1: Styled in various shades of pink, the Olsen Twins, Mandy Moore,
Speaker 1: Lindy Loewen, Alexis Bledell, Evan, Rachel Wood, Raven Simone, and
Speaker 1: Hillary Duff filled a fold out cover spread in the magazine,
Speaker 1: a bit like a collection of Barbie doll It was
Speaker 1: the pinnacle of teen pop culture. The story itself was
Speaker 1: a series of q and as, with each of them
Speaker 1: asking all the important questions of these teen stars, what
Speaker 1: their favorite lip gloss was, how many juicy cature outfits
Speaker 1: they had heavy stuff For the record, seventeen year old
Speaker 1: Amanda had eight tracksuits and her favorite lip gloss was
Speaker 1: long com juicy tubes. She also revealed who she looked
Speaker 1: up to.
Speaker 7: Asked her who her idol was, and she said Jennifer
Speaker 7: Aniston and I looked at her.
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, she actually does have a very
Speaker 3: much a jen Anison quad.
Speaker 1: Amanda Stark kept rising over the next few years, then
Speaker 1: a decade after she started show business, she landed her
Speaker 1: breakout role in two thousand and six, she was cast
Speaker 1: in teen classic She's the Man? Do quants Olibya?
Speaker 5: Do you think she is?
Speaker 7: Who wants the best?
Speaker 4: Gen? Hasn't he cute?
Speaker 5: How you doing?
Speaker 4: Bee?
Speaker 1: Who?
Speaker 7: Who is really by?
Speaker 1: Whose brother is dating Monique? So she hates Olivia who's
Speaker 1: dating Duke?
Speaker 11: To make Sebastion jealous?
Speaker 5: What does your can't tell you which one would you
Speaker 5: rather see?
Speaker 6: Naked?
Speaker 1: If you've made it this far into the podcast, I'm
Speaker 1: going to assume you've seen this film, because this retelling
Speaker 1: of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, set in an American high school
Speaker 1: soccer team, has become Amanda Bin's most iconic on camera performance.
Speaker 1: As with the original play, the character she plays, Viola,
Speaker 1: must disguise herself as a boy in the modern take,
Speaker 1: a love triangle ensues, and a bunch of just iconic
Speaker 1: one liners.
Speaker 4: Who are you play?
Speaker 2: The beautiful game?
Speaker 10: Bro?
Speaker 2: Brothers? Brother?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: Bruh?
Speaker 10: Okay?
Speaker 2: Why do you have tampons in your boot?
Speaker 4: I get really bad nosebleeds?
Speaker 3: Do you like it?
Speaker 2: Gees?
Speaker 4: Well? Why yes?
Speaker 7: I do?
Speaker 5: My favorite Scuda.
Speaker 1: The movie also introduced a brand new leading man into
Speaker 1: Hollywood who went by the name of Channing, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure we're all pretty thankful for too. But the film
Speaker 1: itself had clout well before Amanda was cast in it.
Speaker 1: The script writers Kristin Smith and Karen McCulla lutts, with
Speaker 1: the same female duo responsible for Legally Blonde and the
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine smash hitteenth flick Ten Things I Hate
Speaker 1: About You, which of course launched the careers of Heath
Speaker 1: Ledger and Julia Stiles. As the writers recalled during a
Speaker 1: guest seminar at the University of California a few years ago,
Speaker 1: they were impressed with what Amanda was able to bring
Speaker 1: to the lines on the page. What are your favorite
Speaker 1: lines in She's the Man? I got a lectum and
Speaker 1: knowledge makes me that the cheers conversation, Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: really I like, good at Thanks. Who's my favorite?
Speaker 6: She's so brilliant in that movie.
Speaker 4: She's It's such a surreal perform.
Speaker 1: Here's law again.
Speaker 2: People still quote that role, you know, people say that's
Speaker 2: why they fell in love with Chatting Tatum and he
Speaker 2: went to have one a big career, and it kind
Speaker 2: of showed her that she could be that more comedic actress.
Speaker 2: And when that movie came out, people were saying, she's
Speaker 2: the next Cameron Diaz, She's the next Stree Barrymore, She's
Speaker 2: the next Reese with a Spoon. Like they thought she
Speaker 2: was going to kind of jump to that next level
Speaker 2: and start headlining those big blockbuster movies.
Speaker 1: But what would become her most loved movie role triggered
Speaker 1: something dark inside Amanda. Even in the press too interviews
Speaker 1: she did with Channing Tatum at the time, it's clear
Speaker 1: to see that the role, the switching between genders, didn't
Speaker 1: sit well with her.
Speaker 2: Now, between takes or when you were at lunch and things,
Speaker 2: did you kind of keep it up as a guy
Speaker 2: when you're dressed up?
Speaker 5: I was so tired I think of doing the voice
Speaker 5: that you know, like I wouldn't do it at that point.
Speaker 5: But but it was really fun. And I even when
Speaker 5: I was off like dressing, even when I was a guy.
Speaker 5: I mean, even though it was uncomfortable, I still had fun.
Speaker 5: And I wish I was a girl the whole time
Speaker 5: because then it was me. But but that's what makes
Speaker 5: this movie different.
Speaker 1: But if she was feeling uncomfortable, she wasn't showing it.
Speaker 1: In fact, Amanda was so good at hiding the cracks
Speaker 1: that were starting to form. She presented to the world
Speaker 1: as this perfect, happy, good girl, and that good girl
Speaker 1: image came up over and over again in interviews, even
Speaker 1: by our own Rove McManus when Amanda flew to Sydney
Speaker 1: to promote She's the man on Rove Live.
Speaker 11: You're a nineteen twenty year old here, you're living in
Speaker 11: Hollywood or living the life of a Hollywood star. How
Speaker 11: is it that you get to avoid all that kind
Speaker 11: of tabloid stuff, all that You see a lot of
Speaker 11: young starlets in Hollywood who fall off the tracks. How
Speaker 11: have you managed to avoid all of that?
Speaker 5: You know, I think there are so many girls who
Speaker 5: go to parties and like are photographed doing it and
Speaker 5: sort of I think they feed off of it, and
Speaker 5: I think it makes them feel like, you know, more
Speaker 5: of it, like more of a celebrity or something, and
Speaker 5: it just that's not who I am. And I feel
Speaker 5: like you don't need one more. You know, There's so
Speaker 5: many girls who are doing that, So I'm going like
Speaker 5: the other route and I want to just sort of,
Speaker 5: you know, try to be a good role model for kids.
Speaker 5: And you know, still grow up but sort of you know,
Speaker 5: like I look up to, you know, Saragiska Parker and
Speaker 5: Kate Hudson and Sandra Bla, like girls that are you know,
Speaker 5: like funny, but aren't sort of like you know, all
Speaker 5: about what they do, like you know, on the weekends
Speaker 5: or whatever.
Speaker 1: The year is two thousand and seven, and what Amanda
Speaker 1: is referring to is a handful of other young celebrities
Speaker 1: who are dominating tabloid headlines. I think Lindsay Lowan, Paris Hilton, Britney,
Speaker 1: Mischa Barton. But unlike Amanda, who was now being celebrated
Speaker 1: for her next big girl in Hairspray, it wasn't red
Speaker 1: carpets and premieres, these other girls are getting pressed for
Speaker 1: they're the faces of a new era of tabloid magazines.
Speaker 1: Misha Barton busted board, do you want?
Speaker 2: Lindsay Lohan arrested twice?
Speaker 12: Nicole Richie, Para Filton sort of twenty three days in jail.
Speaker 1: Luisa Hatfield is the former editor of New Weekly and
Speaker 1: Women's Day magazines. She knows a thing or two about
Speaker 1: celebrity gossip, and she says, while the paparazzi phenomenon started
Speaker 1: in the nineties with Princess Diana and the Royals. The
Speaker 1: obsession shifted in the noughties towards the starlet and an
Speaker 1: ever growing desire to see celebrities as just like us.
Speaker 4: You know, when Princess Diana, all of that stuff that
Speaker 4: went through the Royal family, I think that skewed our
Speaker 4: image of celebrity forever. There was no longer a halo
Speaker 4: around celebrity. And hence why that era really of seeing
Speaker 4: so much of seeing what the raw reality actually was
Speaker 4: of celebrity life, because they're no longer was a halo
Speaker 4: around these people. The readers are not to blame at all,
Speaker 4: but they all of this kind of behavior through the celebrities.
Speaker 4: And of course all that body image era was just
Speaker 4: you thought, the celebrity and they're so rich and all
Speaker 4: the rest of it, that they should be so perfect,
Speaker 4: and as a reader just living an ordinary life in Sydney, Australia,
Speaker 4: you felt so much better about yourself when you could
Speaker 4: see that they had troubles as well. And I think
Speaker 4: that that culture of seeing the reality of the celebrities
Speaker 4: just became self perpetuating.
Speaker 1: And there was plenty of it.
Speaker 4: What we started to see was what at the time
Speaker 4: was the kind of behavior like Brittany Lindsay Lowe and
Speaker 4: Mishabarton that at the time was called that sort of
Speaker 4: spoiled brat behavior.
Speaker 1: The headlines were relentless, one good girl falling from grace
Speaker 1: after another. Two thousand and seven was also the year
Speaker 1: another burgeoning it girl started making front pages.
Speaker 10: Parah Hulton's party fou and the star of a new
Speaker 10: celebrity sex tape that has toes wagging.
Speaker 12: Yes as it says exclusive Kim Kardashian coming clean to
Speaker 12: Extra about her sex tape with Granny's.
Speaker 2: Brother Rae Rada and I are friends.
Speaker 10: Never be did with our personal business, and I help them.
Speaker 2: It remains the private.
Speaker 1: While Kim was able to leverage the coverage of her
Speaker 1: quote misdemeanors and turn them into a career opportunity, the
Speaker 1: shots of wild starlets were more in demand than ever.
Speaker 1: But Luisa ponders whether or not that fall was inevitable.
Speaker 4: Putting those women on pedestals is the trouble that creates
Speaker 4: the necessary knockdown effects that will then come. And I
Speaker 4: remember there was some newspaper in the UK about Amy.
Speaker 4: Moving on to the pop star Amy who was going
Speaker 4: through similar things at the time and of course tragically
Speaker 4: died Amy Winehouse, And it was just so unsympathetic. They
Speaker 4: basically said that she should be dragged around to a
Speaker 4: kid's hospital to hammer into her thick skull, that she's
Speaker 4: lucky enough to have a healthy body and mind, and
Speaker 4: that she's wilfully choosing to destroy it. And this was
Speaker 4: kind of the media attitude at the time that Brittany Lindsay.
Speaker 4: They were rich, they were famous, they were talented. Why
Speaker 4: were they mucketing up? Why were they being such brats
Speaker 4: and spoiling.
Speaker 1: That magazine editors and readers relished in the downfall of
Speaker 1: these women at the time, seeing the seemingly perfect young
Speaker 1: Hollywood elite stumbling in and out of clubs, flipping off
Speaker 1: cameras and boozing Paris, Lindsay and Britney sexistly labeled the
Speaker 1: bimbo Summit in pap shots. It's a culture that we
Speaker 1: look back on now as insidious and toxic.
Speaker 4: The irony, of course, the fact that the media was
Speaker 4: so unsympathetic was that the media were causing a lot
Speaker 4: of this, and I think anyone who was in the
Speaker 4: media at that time, particularly in celebrity magazines like myself,
Speaker 4: have to have regrets and be ashamed of some of
Speaker 4: those photographs that we were buying of people like Britney
Speaker 4: shaving off her head, etcetera extraordinary sums of money, and
Speaker 4: of course that was just making it. The whole cycle
Speaker 4: of that go through as the paparazzi got more money
Speaker 4: for these images, the more they harassed these kids, the
Speaker 4: more the kids struggled with their mental health, the more
Speaker 4: they were in the spotlight, couldn't cope with it, and
Speaker 4: the more bad behavior or now troubled behavior it would
Speaker 4: be a better phrase came out. So we drove a
Speaker 4: lot of those troubles that those kids had at the time.
Speaker 4: And you know, anyone in the media at that time
Speaker 4: who doesn't feel regrets for that, they're just not human.
Speaker 1: Frankly, Luisa says, Inside Officers magazine editors were the ones
Speaker 1: making the decisions to put these pictures on page six,
Speaker 1: but when it came to trying to get them, the
Speaker 1: photographers were ruthless.
Speaker 4: When it comes to human beings and good people, the
Speaker 4: paparazzi are very low doubt. I've dealt with a lot
Speaker 4: of paparazzi over the years, and I can't. You know,
Speaker 4: it's very hard to think of a paparazzi photographer who
Speaker 4: is a good person that you would want to go
Speaker 4: and have dinner with. They are the lowest of the low,
Speaker 4: and they know that. They just prod and prod and
Speaker 4: prod and push and push and push and push until
Speaker 4: they get the reaction. And then they go, oh my god,
Speaker 4: you're hurting me, You're hitting me. What are you doing?
Speaker 4: What are you doing? Is such a spoiled brat, So
Speaker 4: you know, there's definitely that side to it where they
Speaker 4: push and prod to get the reaction, no question about it.
Speaker 1: It's a world that, for a time at least, Amanda
Speaker 1: Bines had managed to steer well clear of one she'd
Speaker 1: actively and outspokenly looked down upon. Well her contemporary's latest mugshot,
Speaker 1: criminal misdemeanor, rehab stint, or sex scandal was splashed around.
Speaker 1: Amanda enjoyed a squeaky clean reputation. Here she is on
Speaker 1: show business tonight in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 10: You clearly have your act together. Let me go through
Speaker 10: my little checklist here.
Speaker 7: You have them to jail.
Speaker 11: No, no jail, no, rehab.
Speaker 3: No, no rehab, Amanda.
Speaker 8: Bines, what kind of a starlet are you?
Speaker 5: I know what's wrong with me? I don't know. It's
Speaker 5: shocking how it's become popular to go to rehab, right,
Speaker 5: It's very odd, But I don't know. I guess I
Speaker 5: would say I'm very lucky. I have a great family,
Speaker 5: and I just have my eye on the prize, which
Speaker 5: for me is a long career, and I just I
Speaker 5: don't want to. I don't want to blow what I've
Speaker 5: worked so hard to, you know, to achieve. But I'm
Speaker 5: not interested in that. The club, you know, the club
Speaker 5: scene and drinking doesn't appeal to me, so it's actually
Speaker 5: easier for me not to do it. I've never even
Speaker 5: been offered drugs.
Speaker 1: And again pitted against strugglings dot Lindsay Loewen.
Speaker 2: And a suggestion for falling star Lindsay Lowen move into
Speaker 2: the Vine's household for some good old reprimanding.
Speaker 7: What do you think would happen if she moved in
Speaker 7: with your parents?
Speaker 5: I don't know what would happen, but it would be fun.
Speaker 5: It definitely should be some sort of reality show.
Speaker 1: But as much as Amanda denied and distance to her
Speaker 1: self from the behavior of the girls she grew up
Speaker 1: on TV with the whole time she was facing her
Speaker 1: own private battles with fame. What we wouldn't learn about
Speaker 1: Amanda until many years later is that the beginning of
Speaker 1: her film career sparked the wavering of her mental health.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to a twenty eighteen interview with Paper magazine,
Speaker 1: when Amanda revealed it was her biggest and most loved film,
Speaker 1: She's the Man, which kicked off a whole host of
Speaker 1: internal struggles. Here's Laura Brodnick again.
Speaker 2: She's dressed up as a boy in the movie, and
Speaker 2: she said that when she went to the screenings and
Speaker 2: saw herself on screen, it was the start of her breakdown.
Speaker 2: Whether that's true or not, I'm sure her breakdown's more
Speaker 2: complicated than this, but she said at the time, seeing
Speaker 2: herself on screen as a boy, she just felt that
Speaker 2: she looked so ugly and so unlike herself.
Speaker 1: She told the magazine, I went into a deep depression
Speaker 1: for four to six months because I didn't like how
Speaker 1: I looked when I was a boy. I've never told
Speaker 1: anyone that it was a super strange and out of
Speaker 1: body experience. It just really put me into a funk
Speaker 1: cle Amanda had been maintaining an angelic image, but according
Speaker 1: to that interview, it was all a lie. She'd gone
Speaker 1: from smoking marijuana recreationally in her late teens to trying
Speaker 1: out party drugs like MDMA, and after filming She's the Man,
Speaker 1: it ramped up. Amanda said she got hold of the
Speaker 1: ADHD medication adderall thinking it would act like a weight
Speaker 1: loss pill and help her feel better about how she
Speaker 1: looked on screen, but of course it didn't. When she
Speaker 1: started Hairspray in two thousand and seven, the then twenty
Speaker 1: one year old reportedly hated her performance in appearance so
Speaker 1: much that just a few years after she'd begun her
Speaker 1: film career, she wanted to end it.
Speaker 2: That's the moment she wanted to retire from making movies,
Speaker 2: and she wanted to get other spotlight. And I think
Speaker 2: that comes down to the fact that she'd been in
Speaker 2: the spotlight and in the entertainment industry since she was
Speaker 2: a really little kid, and she'd always been told that
Speaker 2: the way she looked was the most important thing, and
Speaker 2: it was the way she was going to make movies,
Speaker 2: and she was the breadwinner of her family and all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, and then she actually traces that
Speaker 2: movie back to kind of setting her off, and then
Speaker 2: she went on Twitter and announced her retirement. She later
Speaker 2: rescinded that.
Speaker 1: Despite that, she made a brief comeback for a part
Speaker 1: in Easy eight in twenty ten alongside Emma Stone, and
Speaker 1: then started shooting another film called Hall Pass. But at
Speaker 1: this stage Amanda had lost control of her drug use.
Speaker 1: She was abusing adderall and reports emerged that she was
Speaker 1: sloppy on set, that she'd rock up unprepared and couldn't
Speaker 1: remember her lines. That, along with her body dysmorphia, made
Speaker 1: her walk off the set of Hall Pass. For two years,
Speaker 1: Amanda was a drift, no longer able and willing to
Speaker 1: do the only thing she'd ever known. That's when, as
Speaker 1: she later told Paper magazine, her world got smaller. She
Speaker 1: stayed inside getting high all the time, and as Laura explains,
Speaker 1: things quickly went downhill from there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think it was kind of linked to
Speaker 2: her usage on Twitter and where she kind of started
Speaker 2: going off the rails there. It's kind of linked to
Speaker 2: when she started having her first brushes with the laws.
Speaker 2: So I mean the kind of first recorded time of
Speaker 2: that is in twenty twelve, when she was arrested for
Speaker 2: driving under the influence, and then she also hit a
Speaker 2: parked police car. Later on that month, she hit another
Speaker 2: parked police car, and there were all these kind of
Speaker 2: reports going out there, and she would actually get on
Speaker 2: Twitter and say things like the police are lying, they
Speaker 2: set me up. She would tweet it Barack Obama, like
Speaker 2: the then president, saying you need to fire these police
Speaker 2: officers because they assaulted me. And then she would claim
Speaker 2: that the police officers sexually assaulted her. And then she
Speaker 2: would claim that the person who was in the mugshots
Speaker 2: that were released were not her because they were wearing
Speaker 2: a different wig to her at the time. And so
Speaker 2: it was almost like she was having these really intense
Speaker 2: legal problems, and she was being taken to court, and
Speaker 2: she was being arrested and having her license suspended, and
Speaker 2: all these things were happening, and at the same time,
Speaker 2: she was documenting it all in real time on Twitter.
Speaker 2: And of course she would then go back and delete it,
Speaker 2: probably I'm assuming at the urgence her legal team, but
Speaker 2: every time she tweeted, it would just cause a media storm.
Speaker 1: Amanda's online persona became more erratic and more offensive by
Speaker 1: the week, the Twitter spear and tabloids watched an unfold
Speaker 1: blow by blow.
Speaker 2: I mentioned tweeting at Barack Obama. He didn't respond shockingly enough.
Speaker 2: And then in twenty thirteen, Jenny McCarthy, who's obviously an actress,
Speaker 2: in her TV host and had been in not her
Speaker 2: movies butten a lot of those kind of movies around
Speaker 2: at the same time, she tweeted out that there were
Speaker 2: police at Amanda Byn's house and she was hoping that
Speaker 2: she can get help and the circus needs to stop.
Speaker 2: And then Amanda and Jenny went on to have this
Speaker 2: kind of Twitter fight.
Speaker 1: It got worse.
Speaker 2: She tweeted about wanting Drake to murder her vagina, which
Speaker 2: is a tweet that will go down in history. And worse,
Speaker 2: she also tweeted at Rihanna, who I'm not sure did
Speaker 2: anything to kick this off, that she was happy that
Speaker 2: Chris Brown had assaulted her because it obviously meant she
Speaker 2: wasn't pretty enough, and that she was going to call
Speaker 2: her dog Rihanna because her dog reminded her of the superstar,
Speaker 2: and Rhianna, to her credit, didn't really engage in the fight.
Speaker 2: She just said this is what happens when they cancel
Speaker 2: intervention and so that kicks that off. She then went
Speaker 2: on to tweet that she was I mean, she tweeted
Speaker 2: so many things. She tweeted that her father had sexually
Speaker 2: assaulted her. She tweeted that the police were following her
Speaker 2: and trying to track her down. She would often tweet
Speaker 2: that she was going to sue and come after every
Speaker 2: news outlet who reported on it, and she would actually
Speaker 2: name journalists in the tweets. She also said that she
Speaker 2: was going to sue her family for money laundering and
Speaker 2: unethically managing her work. And she went on to say
Speaker 2: that she was no longer speaking to her parents, who
Speaker 2: hadn't really kind of been in the scene at that stage,
Speaker 2: and she made these big statements on Twiteter that she
Speaker 2: would rather be homeless than have her family live off
Speaker 2: her money. So it kind of escalated from there.
Speaker 1: But outside the Twitter feuds was extremely troubling public behavior too,
Speaker 1: bizarre antics in clothes shop gyms, and even getting herself
Speaker 1: kicked out of a New York hotel. Amanda was spiraling
Speaker 1: out of control.
Speaker 6: Child Star, now twenty seven years old, was charged with
Speaker 6: criminal possession of marijuana, tampering with physical evidence. And reckless
Speaker 6: endangerment after police claimed she threw a bong out of
Speaker 6: her thirty six story apartment window in New York late
Speaker 6: Thursday night.
Speaker 1: And that's when she began to truly get a taste
Speaker 1: of the paparazzi culture that she'd managed to avoid in
Speaker 1: those earlier years.
Speaker 7: All Right, can I just get one, queen frame?
Speaker 5: You have to delete that one in my face. I
Speaker 5: need to look beautiful. It's a bad shot, all right, Please,
Speaker 5: you look gorgeous.
Speaker 7: Hold hold, lady, here, over here.
Speaker 3: No come towards me, No, come towards me.
Speaker 11: Now, just work towards me.
Speaker 10: Can I just get a shot of you walking towards me?
Speaker 11: Let go of the camera.
Speaker 5: Excuse me, let go of my camera.
Speaker 4: Please, let go of my camera.
Speaker 10: All right, can you let go?
Speaker 2: Mar Amanda?
Speaker 3: Stop yoa, what the hell?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 2: Let me go?
Speaker 10: What the hell's road to stop that?
Speaker 5: Doug?
Speaker 10: Your neil sits on my neck, lady.
Speaker 2: At the time, we didn't have this understanding for celebrities
Speaker 2: that there might be mental health issues or anything like that.
Speaker 2: It was very much Amanda Bynes is crazy. She's gone
Speaker 2: off the rails. She deserves whatever happens to her paparazzi
Speaker 2: would absolutely hound her in the street, very much like
Speaker 2: what used to happen to Britney Spears. They would drive
Speaker 2: their cars into her car, and later on into whoever
Speaker 2: was driving her because she was st a license, and
Speaker 2: they would follow her into shopping centers and they would
Speaker 2: scream things at her to try and make her upset
Speaker 2: because a smiling photo of a celebrity, the reason celebrities
Speaker 2: smile in photos is because they don't sell for very much,
Speaker 2: and so if you can get the celebrity to cry
Speaker 2: or look up, set the money you're going to make
Speaker 2: off that photo skyrocket. So there's all these videos around
Speaker 2: of her just like walking her dog or trying to
Speaker 2: get a coffee and paparazzi screaming these really intense threats
Speaker 2: at her. She would then cry and attack them and
Speaker 2: yell back at them, and they would get those photos
Speaker 2: and be able to sell them. She started wearing wigs
Speaker 2: a lot of the time to obscure her face, and
Speaker 2: she got arrested a few times while wearing the wigs.
Speaker 2: So when you actually saw the wig come off in
Speaker 2: her mugshot, people kind of linked that to her crazy behavior,
Speaker 2: as they called it. Kind of saying that she was
Speaker 2: almost cose playing as a different character. And we don't
Speaker 2: know exactly why, but maybe she was trying to protect
Speaker 2: her identity, or maybe she just knew that she was
Speaker 2: going to get photographed no matter what.
Speaker 1: All of Amanda's fans from the last fifteen years watched
Speaker 1: on as the paparazzi machine chewed her up, and as
Speaker 1: her mental health appeared to be in a continuous state
Speaker 1: of decline, those around her wondered how much worse it
Speaker 1: could get, until one night, armed with a can of petrol,
Speaker 1: she lit up a driveway in California, CA.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want a gadpoining thing up, but I don't
Speaker 3: know if there's any more gappling in it. But everybody
Speaker 3: is nobody injured, No, no one's injured. How close is
Speaker 3: it to the house. It's easily close about I would
Speaker 3: say five feet.
Speaker 1: That July twenty thirteen night would change Amanda's life forever,
Speaker 1: when the twenty seven year old was put under fifty
Speaker 1: one fifty psychiatric hold. From this night on and for
Speaker 1: nearly the next ten years, Amanda would lose power over
Speaker 1: decisions about her life in the same way Britney Spears
Speaker 1: had five years earlier. But are there any real parallels
Speaker 1: between these conservatorships? Was Amanda really trapped? Next time, on
Speaker 1: Part two of What Happened to Amanda Bynes, we'll reveal
Speaker 1: the twisted systems of conservative ships in the US, which
Speaker 1: sparked a global movement to hashtag free Britney, and we'll
Speaker 1: explore why that very movement would turn its attention towards
Speaker 1: Amanda Bynes.
Speaker 12: The similarity that I see is the interviews with her
Speaker 12: lawyers are laid, you know, with the Britney Spears attention.
Speaker 12: You know, they've said, well, she's doing really well, she's
Speaker 12: in college, she's in the fashion institute. You think immediately, Okay,
Speaker 12: well this is a person who must be able to
Speaker 12: care for themselves, because how are they getting through college?
Speaker 12: If they really are doing everything that they say they should,
Speaker 12: then I think there's a way to communicate that from
Speaker 12: her directly.
Speaker 1: This season of Extraordinary Stories is written by our executive
Speaker 1: producers Sidney Paide and myself, Emma Gillespie, with audio production
Speaker 1: from Madeline Joanna. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2: To listen to Part two, just click the link in
Speaker 2: our show notes