Hold on tight to your steering wheel. Train-wreck actress Amanda Bynes is staying in Manhattan for the foreseeable future after a judge agreed she doesn’t have to formally turn herself in to be booked by LA cops until next month.
Sources tell us the former Nickelodeon star — who’s facing five criminal charges in Los Angeles, including a DUI, two separate hit-and-run accidents and two counts of driving with a suspended license — is determined to stay in New York as long as possible as she works on launching a fashion career and developing her own line.
Bynes was spotted leaving Gotham Lasik Vision on West 57th Street last week wearing the trademark black glasses following Lasik eye surgery — sparking one onlooker to quip, “Perhaps she’ll claim in court she keeps crashing because she couldn’t see.”
A source close to Bynes said, “Amanda wants to stay in New York for a while. She was ordered to formally turn herself in to be booked for hit-and-run on Oct. 21 to be fingerprinted and have her mug shot taken, but her lawyers have managed to get an extension granted, and she doesn’t need to return to LA until November.”
The source added, “She says she’s here trying to take meetings with designers and fashion houses, but, really, she is a lost soul.”
Recently, the star acted in bizarre fashion at the Little Cupcake Bakeshop on Prince Street. A witness said, “She was wearing sunglasses at night, tiny shorts and high heels, just walking around staring at the cupcakes — for two hours.” Bynes then locked herself in the bathroom for half an hour before a concerned firefighter tried to force the door open. Our spy added, “She said, very calmly, ‘Oh, excuse me. I was doing my makeup,’ and left.”
Bynes formally pleaded not guilty in a Van Nuys courtroom on Sept. 27 to charges related to her hit-and-run cases. The good news for New Yorkers is that she no longer has a valid driver’s license and is off the road.