Jake Lloyd, known for playing the child version of Anakin Skywalker in Episode I: The Phantom Menace, the first installment of George Lucas’ prequel trilogies, has been admitted to a psychiatric facility to deal with his mental health problems.
His mother, Lisa Lloyd, was in charge of communicating this news in an interview with Scripps News last Monday, delving into the obstacles her son has had to go through since receiving his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.
The young man is now 35 years old and struggles with mental illness. With the 25th anniversary of the release of The Phantom Menace, Lisa Lloyd wanted to give this interview and reveal what has happened to her son since then.
“Jake started having some problems during his high school days,” the woman recalls, talking about the moment she noticed that the then boy’s personality changed completely. “He started talking about ‘realities’, that he didn’t know if he was in this reality or a different one. I didn’t know exactly what to respond to that.”
The years passed, and mother and son tried to face these challenges in the best way possible. However, Jake’s mental problems soon worsened. The then-teenager received his first diagnosis, bipolar disorder, and although he was prescribed several medications, nothing seemed to work.
The young man, despite everything, managed to finish his high school studies and start university. It was then that, according to his mother, his life changed completely. Seeing himself as more independent also contributed to the detriment of his mental health.
“He missed a lot of classes, he said people followed him,” recalls Lisa Lloyd, saying that her son claimed to see people “with black eyes” looking at him on the street or that he talked to television characters late at night. It was then that he came up with the definitive diagnosis: paranoid schizophrenia.
“When they finally told him, it plunged him into an even worse depression,” explained his mother, ensuring that that stage was “really difficult” because her son refused to continue treatment or take his medication.
Despite everything, the mother of one of the great child stars of the early 2000s has many “more hopes” than in years. The child actor has been in a center for about ten months after suffering a psychotic break in March 2023, when he stopped his car in the middle of the highway for no apparent reason and the police had to come.
“He’s doing much better than we expected,” says his mother. Regarding Star Wars, the saga that made him famous, he still considers himself a fan: “He loves everything new. People think Jake hates Star Wars, but he is passionate about it.”