Amanda Bynes is in the news yet again, as the troubled former Nickelodeon star had perhaps her most eventful week yet.
The actress, who was arrested last week on charges of drug possession and reckless endangerment after she allegedly dropped a bong out of her high-rise apartment window, has repeatedly written on Twitter that she was sexually assaulted by the police who arrested her and threatened to sue the New York Police Department. (Bynes has threatened to sue various entities over the course of the past few months, including many gossip news outlets and her apartment building.)
Bynes' erratic behavior has also included a series of tweets directed at the pop star Rihanna -- since deleted and disavowed entirely by Bynes, but preserved in screenshot form on the gossip site TMZ -- in which she mocked the singer's appearance and her abuse at the hands of Chris Brown, a former boyfriend. Bynes' tweets at Rihanna made the covers of both New York daily tabloids over the Memorial Day weekend; the ethical conundrum of how to cover a breaking-down star has only grown more intense as Bynes has continued to apparently decompensate and once authorities got involved.
The Bynes case is so unusually compelling for gossip-readers -- more so than Bynes' repute as an actress who never quite made it to megafame would suggest -- in part because Bynes has so vociferously pleaded her case, in public. Even as she shows up to a court appearance in a frizzy blond wig, Bynes is able to string together words that are grammatically unimpeachable but logically unsound. She's a compelling character in a tabloid drama, one who truly believes in her innocence and is thus the butt of the joke. "I'm allergic to alcohol and drugs and don't partake in any of the above," she writes; "I'm so offended by all of this but so proud to not be a drug or alcohol user." In another post, she alleges past exploitation at the hands of her parents, when she was a child actress; she even denies the Rihanna tweets, which were posted for the world to see. "Rihanna and I met and I'm sure we'll be in a music video together one day!"
That's right -- Bynes hopes to launch a career as a "singer/rapper" once this is all cleared up. And as they have been for months, media outlets, music producers, potential hangers-on and purported fans have been tweeting at Amanda, asking her to get in touch.
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