Star Wars child actor Jake Lloyd, who played Anakin Skywalker in the 1999 film, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, has reportedly entered a mental health facility following a psychotic break.
Lloyd suffered a psychotic break in March 2023 while his mother, Lisa Lloyd, was driving him home from picking up food at McDonald’s, after which he entered an inpatient program and has been in a mental health facility for the last 10 months.
“He said he wanted to turn the car off. And he turned the car off in the middle of the three lanes, and we were in the middle lane,” Lisa told Scripps News on Monday. “There was a lot of yelling and screaming.”
The actor’s mother added that the whole ordeal resulted in a traffic jam, causing nearby drivers to call 911.
“The police got there, and they asked Jake some questions,” Lisa recalled. “He was talking to them, but none of it made sense. It was all word salad.”
Lloyd was reportedly admitted to a hospital following his psychotic break after the visit to McDonald’s. Two months later, he entered the rehabilitation facility for an 18-month stay.
“He’s doing much better than I expected,” his mother said. “He is relating to people better and becoming a little bit more social, which is really nice.”
The child actor was reportedly diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2008, when he was 19 years old.
Lisa told Scripps News that she first noticed her son “having some trouble” when he was in high school, and that his condition only worsened after he started college.
“He didn’t tell us he was hearing voices at the time. But he was,” she said. “When they finally told him [he was schizophrenic], it totally threw him off into an even worse depression. It was really hard.”
But Lloyd didn’t take his medication very often, as he didn’t think anything was wrong with him, his mother added.
Then, in June 2015, the child actor was arrested after leading police on a multi-county chase before crashing his car. Lloyd spent 10 months in jail over the incident, and subsequently sought out psychiatric help.
The child actor, who also appeared in the 1996 comedy, Jingle All the Way, and the 2001 film, Madison, is now reportedly taking his medications on a regular basis, with Lisa saying that he is starting to act like “the old Jake” again.
Lloyd’s mother also insisted that her son is “in a lot better place” nowadays.
“We all love Jake, and we want to be around him,” she said. “I just want him to be happy.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
