Amanda Bynes Unfiltered: The Actress Breaks Her Silence on Her History of Drug Abuse, Those Wild Tweets and Her ''Dark, Sad World''

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Amanda Bynes is clearing the air—and this time, she's doing it in more than 140 characters.

Appropriately, the 32-year-old actress has chosen to do so in PAPER's annual "Break the Internet" issue. No topic is off limits as Bynes reflects on her drug-fueled past—sometimes, in embarrassing detail. Now "almost four years sober," thanks to her parents' loving support, Bynes plans to continue her education at L.A.'s Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.

A former child star on Nickelodeon, Bynes hit went mainstream when she transitioned into movies, starring in hits like Big Fat Liar and What a Girl Wants. But it was her role in 2006's She's the Man, in which she dressed in drag, that led to an "interesting experience" after the shoot ended. "When the movie came out and I saw it, I went into a deep depression for 4-6 months because I didn't like how I looked when I was a boy. I've never told anyone that," she says, pausing for a moment. Bynes explains that seeing herself with short hair and sideburns was "a super strange and out-of-body experience," candidly adding, "It just really put me into a funk."


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Bynes became increasingly fixated on her appearance when she was cast in 2007's Hairspray. Around that time, she recalls reading a magazine article that referred to Adderall as the "new skinny pill," as possible side effects of the stimulant include decreased appetite and weight loss.

"They were talking about how women were taking it to stay thin. I was like, 'Well, I have to get my hands on that.'" So, Bynes says she visited a psychiatrist and faked the symptoms of ADD in order to get a prescription. In hindsight, Bynes regrets taking the pills—especially considering how it began to affect her work in the spring of 2010. "When I was doing Hall Pass, I remember being in the trailer and I used to chew the Adderall tablets because I thought they made me [higher that way]. I remember chewing on a bunch of them and literally being scatterbrained and not being able to focus on my lines," she confesses. "Or memorize them, for that matter."

Screen Gems

While "literally tripping out," Bynes caught a glimpse of herself on the monitor and thought her arm "looked so fat." Unhappy with her appearance, Bynes rushed off set, never to return. She decided to quit the comedy—it was a "mixture of being so high that I couldn't remember my lines and not liking my appearance," she says—but maintains she wasn't fired. "I did leave," she says. "It was definitely completely unprofessional of me to walk off and leave them stranded when they'd spent so much money on a set and crew and camera equipment and everything."

A few months after she quit Hall Pass (and was replaced by Alexandra Daddario), Bynes went to an Easy A screening and says she had "a different reaction than everyone else to the movie."