With troubled star Amanda Bynes placed on 5150 psychiatric hold at a Los Angeles treatment facility Friday, her parents could finally breathe easier.
It’s a long road ahead, and they know this, having been down it before. But at least she’s no longer in grave danger of harming herself or other people.
"They’re happy she’s safe and that Amanda is finally getting some help," a source said of the recent development, which capped off weeks of disturbing behavior.
Believing she was being driven from LAX airport to a lawyer’s office for a meeting, a blindsided Bynes was instead driven to a Pasadena treatment center.
She remains there as of this morning.
Playing a key role was Sam Lutfi, a former Britney Spears friend who is also close with Bynes and helped orchestrate the cross-country flight, and ruse.
The intervention was part of a plan hatched by her parents and their attorney, Tamar Arminak, to get Bynes help, with Lutfi being the one who could get through.
"It was touch and go whether the plan would work," says the source, stating the obvious concern that Bynes "is erratic and disconnected from reality."
Bynes recently proclaimed she was engaged to Caleb Pusey, needs a "tremendous amount of facial surgery" and "will not be manipulated or brainwashed."
She also stated out of nowhere that her father Rick was sexually, verbally and physically abusive when she was younger, a charge the family denies.
Amanda subsequently deleted the Tweets about sexual abuse and blamed "the microchip in [her] brain" (not the first time she’s cited that) for making her lash out.
This deeply disturbed her family, though.
Her mom Lynn decried the comments in a statement, while Amanda Bynes’ siblings, Jillian O’Keefe and Tommy Bynes, rushed to their parents’ defense.
Bynes’ behavior, which also included running into pedestrians on her bike, shoplifting from multiple stores and talking to inanimate objects, was chilling.
In 2012 and 2013, a similarly unsettling pattern of antics culminated in her being hospitalized on a psychiatric hold as well, followed by months of treatment.
She was placed under mother’s care and lived with her parents in the L.A. area, and her folks were optimistic that she was healing after about a year.
Not the case, and they are surely kicking themselves for letting their original conservatorship lapse as they head to court to seek another one this week.
"They hope … Amanda’s situation will get under control," said the source. "They love their daughter very much. They have not turned their backs on her."
