What happened to Jake Lloyd?

One positive that can be said about all the hate directed at the Star Wars sequel trilogy is that the prequel trilogy has undergone a major redemption, as those that grew up with George Lucas’ attempt to recapture the magic of the originals have really come to appreciate them anew over the past decade.

That’s also spread to a reclamation of the Star Wars prequel actors who were once shunned by the fandom. Jar Jar Binks star Ahmed Best has made a triumphant return to the saga, this time as a Jedi knight (the one who saved Grogu, no less) and Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, and Hayden Christensen have all returned across Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka. Unfortunately, one prequels veteran who seems unlikely to make a similar comeback is Jake Lloyd, due to his retirement from acting and battle with his mental health.

Jake Lloyd was one of the most notable child actors operating in Hollywood in the late 1990s, having made his screen debut in an episode of E.R. at the age of seven, starring as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son in Jingle All the Way, and most notably of all, landing the coveted role of young Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace. Although he seemed primed to become a major star, Lloyd ultimately only made two further movie appearances following the release of Episode I.

Due to comments made to Blackbook in 2012, the perception is that Lloyd walked away from the industry due to the intense scrutiny and even bullying he faced at such a young age. “Other children were really mean to me,” he explained at the time. “They would make the sound of the lightsaber every time they saw me. It was totally mad. My entire school life was really a living hell — and I had to do up to 60 interviews a day. I’ve learned to hate it when the cameras are pointed at me.”

In June 2015, Lloyd was arrested for reckless driving, driving without a license, and resisting arrest in South Carolina, with his subsequent mugshot going viral on social media. Many Star Wars fans may have a pre-conceived image of the former Chosen One, then, but what really happened to Jake Lloyd?

Jake Lloyd’s mother has opened up about the real story of her son’s life

For the first time, Lisa Lloyd — mother to Jake, now 35 — has broken her silence on everything her son has gone through in the past quarter of a century since The Phantom Menace, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in May 2024. As well as detailing Jake’s lifelong struggle with his mental health, Lisa also revealed what her son’s real feelings towards the Star Wars saga are.

As per an interview with Scripps News, Lisa Lloyd explained that Jake has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and he’s suffered from delusions and a detachment from reality since his teenage years. “Jake started having some trouble in high school,” Lisa said. “He started talking about ‘realities.’ He didn’t know if he was in this reality, or a different reality. I didn’t really know exactly what to say to that.”

At the time, Jake told his mom that he saw people with “black eyes” staring at him on the street and he would have lat night conversations with talk show host Jon Stewart through the TV screen. By 2007, Jake was planning to attend private arts school, Columbia College Chicago, once he graduated high school, but he was unable to finish his education once he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. “He missed a lot of classes, and he was telling me that people were following him,” Lisa remembered. A year later, in 2008, Lloyd was additionally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Although Lloyd’s prior comments have painted his Star Wars fame as contributing to his problems, his mother is keen to stress that she doesn’t think playing Anakin has anything to do with it. “It would have happened anyway,” she maintained, revealing that there is a history of schizophrenia on Jake’s father’s side of the family.

Jake Lloyd’s “full-blown psychotic break,” explained

Jake Lloyd continued to attempt to manage his condition for the next several years, with Lisa admitting that he would occasionally both stop taking his prescribed medication and self-medicate with illicit drugs. Then, in 2015, he was taking a solo trip from Florida to Canada when he led the police on a multi-county car chase, which ended with him crashing his vehicle. Lloyd subsequently served a 10 month stretch in prison.

Things only got more tragic from there when Lloyd’s sister, Madison, passed away in 2018 at the age of just 26. Madison, who died in her sleep of natural causes, also appeared in The Phantom Menace, as an extra (see above screenshot). Jake took his sister’s loss hard — “He just couldn’t handle it. He didn’t know how to process it,” Lisa recalled. Fast forward five years to 2023 and Jake’s troubles had only increased, resulting in him suffering from what Lisa describes as a “full-blown psychotic break” during a car journey home.

“He said he wanted to turn the car off,” Lisa stated. “And he turned the car off in the middle of the three lanes, and we were in the middle lane. There was a lot of yelling and screaming.” A jam formed and the other drivers phoned 911. When the police came and asked Lloyd some questions, he responded but, as Lisa puts it, “none of it made sense. It was all word salad.”

Jake was taken to a hospital that day and two months later was officially transferred to an inpatient program at a mental health rehabilitation facility. As of March 2024, he is 10 months into an 18-month stay and Lisa gushed about how well his recuperation is going. “He’s doing much better than I expected,” Lisa opined. “He is relating to people better and becoming a little bit more social, which is really nice. It’s kind of like having more of the old Jake back, because he has always been incredibly social until he became schizophrenic.”

Something that his rehabilitation has allowed him to is reconnect with his Star Wars fandom. Jake was a big fan of Ahsoka, released on Disney Plus last fall, and his mom even got him an Ahsoka Tano action figure for his most recent birthday. “He loves all the new Star Wars stuff,” Lisa Lloyd made clear. “People think Jake hates Star Wars. He loves it.”

Hopefully his fellow Star Wars fans around the world can be in agreement that they wish Jake Lloyd nothing but the best.