Amanda Bynes ‘Doing Great’ and ‘Focusing on Making Herself Happy’: Friends and Family ‘Very Hopeful’

Amanda Bynes has been to hell and back over the past few years, but she’s getting her life back on track slowly but surely, as friends and family pray the recovery can continue for the long term. A source exclusively tells In Touch the former Nickelodeon star is thriving and back to the goal she set for herself after giving up acting: fashion design. She holds a degree from Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM) in Irvine, California, but found it difficult to throw herself into her passion due to her struggle with mental health issues.

Though today, “Amanda seems to be in a really great place,” the source says. “She’s finally doing what she set out to do when she signed up for FIDM and she’s working on a fashion line and making art.” 

Even though the She’s All That actress, 38, was pictured sporting a ring on her left ring finger, she is not engaged and is still single since splitting with ex fiancée, Paul Michael, in July 2023 just before a stint in an inpatient clinic. More than a year and a half later, the source notes, “She says she’s very happy to be single and focusing on making herself happy, instead of worrying about pleasing a man.” 

“She’s looking great and is feeling more confident in her body,” the source adds. “She’s wearing tighter clothes and enjoying styling herself, she’s even been posting pics of her outfits on her stories.” 

Throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, Amanda reigned supreme on Nickelodeon with her explosive rise to fame on All That before landing her own program, The Amanda Show, which ran for three years, from 1999 to 2002. In the late 2000s, she ended up pulling out of a few acting projects for unspecified reasons – she dropped out of the movie Post Grad and was replaced by Alexis Blede amid rumors she was facing mental health difficulties and substance abuse, and then was replaced by Alexandra Daddario after she had already started filming Hall Pass for what many assumed were the same reasons. Her last gig was costarring alongside Emma Stone in Easy A in 2010, for which she received critical praise, though by then it was clear she needed to take some time to collect herself and she announced a hiatus from entertainment that year.

After multiple run-ins with the law in 2013, in which Amanda allegedly threw a bong out of her 36th-story Manhattan apartment window and started a fire in her driveway in California, her parents petitioned to place her under their conservatorship during a 72-hour mental-evaluation hold. A judge granted their request and she remained under conservatorship until March 2022. 

“She’s such a sweet person, everyone is hoping that she’s finally going to stick to this healthier path,” the source says. “No one is saying she should avoid dating forever, but they would love to see her stay single for a while, just because she does have a history of picking unhealthy relationships.” 

“She’s saying that’s what she wants as well, she just wants to work on her fashion line and continue improving and getting healthier, so her inner circle is feeling very hopeful.”