There aren’t many things about the Star Wars universe that are a mystery anymore – but Jake Lloyd, who starred as a young Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace when he was 9 years old, has lived a largely private life since the movie was released in 1999. He did make a few public appearances at Comic Con events and things like that as a teenager, but unfortunately made headlines when he was arrested for reckless driving in 2015 following a multi-country car chase where he failed to stop for police.

There hasn’t been much news on Jake Lloyd since, but his mum Lisa recently did an interview where she provided an update on 35-year-old Jake and how he is currently 10 months into an 18-month stay at a mental health facility – being treated for paranoid schizophrenia.

Apparently Jake started showing signs of the condition in high school, where he’d tell his mum he didn’t know which reality he was in, and then dropped out of uni in his first year because he thought people were following him.

She details a few more awful details of his schizophrenia over the years; how his younger sister’s death made him struggle even more, and the full-on mental breakdown he had in his mum’s car where he stopped the vehicle in the middle of three lanes of traffic and started yelling and screaming.

The good news is, as per the article, Jake’s mum thinks he’s slowly turning it around:

He’s currently about 10 months into an 18-month stay. Lisa hopes it will be a significant turning point for Jake, noting that he’s been showing remarkable improvement with the help of therapy and treatments. 

“He’s doing much better than I expected,” Lisa said. “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.”

Jake is also starting to understand more about his condition and the importance of consistently taking his medication, according to his mom. For the first time in many years, Lisa says Jake is more enthusiastic about hanging out with family friends at barbecues and celebrating holidays. 

She also made a point to squash any rumours that backlash to the Phantom Menace caused his condition, noting that schizophrenia runs in their family:

As for “Star Wars,” his mother said Jake is still a huge fan of the movies and shows. Most recently, he’s been watching episodes of the “Ahsoka” series on Disney+. Lisa even gave Jake an action figure of the lead character Ahsoka Tano last week as a birthday present.

“He loves all the new ‘Star Wars’ stuff,” she says. “People think Jake hates ‘Star Wars.’ He loves it.”

Lisa is also eager to dispel what she says is a common misconception: that an avalanche of negative reaction to “The Phantom Menace” drove Jake to quit acting and contributed to his mental illness.

“It would have happened anyway,” Lisa insists, pointing to a history of schizophrenia on his biological father’s side of the family. “I believe that it was genetic. And his psychiatrist also agrees that Jake was going to become schizophrenic.”

She also insists that in 1999, Jake was largely shielded from the toxic vitriol swirling around the prequel film.

“I protected him from the backlash. He was just riding his bike outside, playing with his friends. He didn’t know. He didn’t care,” Lisa said. “Everybody makes such a big deal about that. And it’s rather annoying to me because Jake was a little kid when that came out, and he didn’t really feel all that stuff because I didn’t let him online.”

When asked if Jake Lloyd would ever return to acting…

Jake loved filming ‘Star Wars.’ He had so much fun,” she recalled. “I would love for him to get well enough to be able to do a little bit of something, and I’m sure he would maybe like to do that. He couldn’t at this point, but you never know how much he’s going to improve. So we’ll see.”

Lisa said though all the challenges, she’s learned important lessons about remaining calm and having the patience to listen and understand what Jake is feeling deep down. Exactly what his future holds is uncertain, but today his mother believes it’s brighter than it has been in a long time.

“We’re in a lot better place. And we do have a lot of things to look forward to,” Lisa said. “We all love Jake, and we want to be around him. I just want him to be happy.”

Well it’s good to hear that the decline in Jake Lloyd’s mental health had nothing to do with the backlash around The Phantom Menace when it came out, but it’s still pretty pathetic that anyone would be so into Star Wars that they would attack a child because they didn’t live up to their expectations in a film about imaginary creatures in space. What are these weirdos like?!

As cool as it would be to see Jake Lloyd make a cameo in a Star Wars film in the future, the most important thing is that he’s getting the help he needs and that he’s getting better. Which, from the sounds of it, is very much the case. Thanks for the update, Lisa!

For the time King Charles asked Natalie Portman if she was in the original Star Wars (which came out before she was born), click HERE.