The actor Jake Lloydwho played the child Anakin Skywalker in the film “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” has been admitted to a mental health rehabilitation center for 10 months, reported his mother, Lisa Lloyd.
Jake will remain in the institution for another eight months after submitting a Psychotic attack in March 2023 when the young man turned off his car in the middle of a three-lane road, so the police intervened.
Almost 25 years after the release of the film of the successful saga, Lisa considered it was time to talk about what her son has been experiencing since his diagnosis, in 2008, of paranoid schizophrenia.
“Jake started having some problems in high school. He started talking about ‘realities’. He didn’t know if he was in this reality or another. I didn’t know exactly what to say to that,” Lisa Lloyd told Scripps News, recalling the moment she first noticed her son’s personality was changing.
He was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder and took medication that didn’t help. Before beginning classes at Columbia College Chicago, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Lisa also recalled a time in 2015 when Jake, now 35, drove on a police chase through several counties before wrecking his car and getting 10 months in prison.
The actor’s mother said that the disease her son suffers from would be related to genetics. However, for many fans, his problems had been linked to negative reviews that “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” received after its premiere in 1999, when he was only 10 years old.
Beyond public speculation, Lisa thought it was important to highlight that this would have happened the same way in her son’s life, especially given the results that the doctors gave.
“The truth is that the same thing would have happened to him under other circumstances. I think it’s something genetic. And his psychiatrist agrees that Jake was going to be schizophrenic, due to inheritance from his father’s family,” he concluded.
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‘Star Wars’ actor suffers from schizophrenia
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