Amanda Bynes before and after her face tattoo, compared

Amanda Bynes is officially back in the spotlight, with the debut of her new interview-style podcast Amanda Bynes & Paul Sieminski: The Podcast.

Her new project debuted in December of 2023, and instantly attracted broad fan attention. Bynes is a treasured staple of Millennial childhoods, and her contributions to comedy persist as some of our favorite childhood and teenage moments.

For years now, Bynes’ longtime fans have agonized over the actresses struggles, as she grappled with her mental health and substance abuse. She spent years in a conservatorship managed by her mother, Lynn Bynes, before finally ending it in 2022. Freed from its bounds, Bynes spent the next months branching out and rediscovering herself. She hit a few more hurdles along the way, but it seems that — finally, after more than a decade of grappling with her demons — Bynes is on the upswing.

During her time under the conservatorship, Bynes endured several highly-publicized low points, including more than one 5150 Hold. She was largely absent from social media during this time — particularly following a series of intense and concerning tweets — but she did reappear from time to time to update fans on her situation. In one such update, near the end of 2019, Bynes revealed new ink — a small facial tattoo, around the size of a thumb nail, in the shape of a heart.

Amanda Bynes’ face tattoo

Bynes is still rocking the heart to this day, though the rapidly-fading ink has sparked a range of rumors about its removal. Bynes has voiced plans to get the tattoo removed, and the process has been underway for awhile now, but remnants of the tattoo remain.

Differences in Bynes appearance before and after the tattoo are hugely overstated. The actress looks exactly the same in 2023, albeit a few years older than we last saw her on-screen. She retired from acting a good decade ago, after all, so it makes sense that she’s grown up behind the scenes.

As for the tattoo? Well, it looks like a tattoo. It doesn’t change the shape of her face, it just adds a small black heart into the mix. Any changes fans may be detecting in Bynes appearance are likely the result of father time and a blepharoplasty surgery Bynes received a while back. The star gushed about her boost in confidence after receiving the surgery — which removes excess skin from the eyelids — and, while it’s far from making her unrecognizable, the surgery did somewhat change the shape of Bynes’ eyelids.

Bynes, post-tattoo, still looks like the talented actress Millennials grew up with. She’s changed a few other minor aspects of her appearance — sporting platinum blonde locks and dyed eyebrows in 2023 — but the star is still the same beautiful, funny, and kind person we’ve long known and loved.

Look, I know face tattoos get a bad rap, but who’s honestly worrying themselves about a tiny little heart? As Bynes noted in the premier episode of her new podcast, “nobody cares anymore if people have face tattoos. It shouldn’t matter.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Face tattoos may not be your thing — that’s fine! You may not like seeing them on other people — that’s fine too. But what Bynes does with her own body (face included) is no one’s business but her own, so whether she polishes off the removal process or not, we’re simply happy to see a childhood favorite back on her feet, and contributing more of her wonderful talent to the world.