Amanda Bynes Tweets Nose Job

Amanda Bynes Image by Instagram

By Anne Cohen May 6, 2013

Amanda Bynes has had a nose job. How do we know? Why, how do we know anything about Amanda Bynes? Through Twitter, of course.

The retired actress tweeted the news out on Saturday:

“Intouch used a photo from years ago on their cover and I hate it! The reason I’ve asked all magazines and blogs to stop using old photos of me is I don’t look like that anymore! I had a nose job to remove skin that was like a webbing in between my eyes. I wasn’t going to tell anyone, but I look so much prettier in my new photos that I don’t want old photos used anymore! I’m so sick of magazines and blogs using old photos! When will they stop? I will never look like that again! Having surgery was the most amazing thing for my confidence!”

The troubled star has posted regularly about her appearance in the last few weeks, discussing her (alarming) wish to lose weight, recent hair troubles, and trips to the gym — along with a topless picture, or two.

About to put on makeup! I weigh 135, I’ve gained weight! I need to be 100 lbs! twitpic.com/cn7gtx

ampmdash; Amanda Bynes (@AmandaBynes) April 30, 2013

I buzzed half my head like @cassie! No more old photos! This is the new me! I love it! twitpic.com/clx36u

ampmdash; Amanda Bynes (@AmandaBynes) April 25, 2013

At the gym! Rawr!twitpic.com/cmqvtl

ampmdash; Amanda Bynes (@AmandaBynes) April 29, 2013

Some have jumped to her defense, saying that gleefully observing the starlet’s online self-destruction sends the message that eating disorders, self-esteem issues and mental illness are something to be laughed at. In a recent post on Thought Catalogue called “It Is Not Okay To Make Fun Of Amanda Bynes,” Chelsea Fagan made a compelling case.

“We think that it is “funny,” or “amazing,” or even “chic” to see yet another talented young woman go the way of Lindsay Lohan,” Fagan wrote. “We reinforce her actions with the kind of salacious publicity that allows people to laugh for a few seconds at her disturbing cries for help and then move onto the next celebrity topic that doesn’t affect us in the least. And while I’m not saying that we have to lose sleep over what happens to any given person in the public eye simply because they are famous, there is a canyon of difference between hand-wringing about her well-being and openly using her problems as a source of schadenfreude-laced mockery.”

Like Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe or Karen Carpenter, Fagan added, we tend to idolize the “hot messes” of Hollywood. “But the aforementioned women have one more thing in common,” she wrote, “beyond their struggles with weight and medication and personal image — something even more significant, and certainly more permanent. They are all dead.”

What do you think about Amanda Bynes’ recent behavior?

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

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