What Really Happened To Young Anakin's Actor, Jake Lloyd?

Moviegoers of all stripes remember Jake Lloyd as the young Anakin Skywalker in 1999's "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace." However, the child star seemed to leave the spotlight for good after the fame surrounding his "Star Wars" turn and a handful of other films he made in the late '90s and early 2000s, including the 1996 Arnold Schwarzenegger-led holiday favorite, "Jingle All the Way."

But why did the young actor disappear from the public eye? Well, that's because Lloyd actually left acting entirely in 2001. Subsequently, he started experiencing mental health issues in high school, ultimately receiving a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, and he has never returned to the acting trade. In retrospect, his departure from Hollywood seemed to mark the end of one chapter of his life and the start of a new one.

By all reports, Lloyd's emergence into adulthood came with a new set of obstacles for the former child star, mainly having to do with his mental health. And the tragic 2018 death of his sister, Madison, added a different layer of gravity to his life. But since his acting days came to a close, even 25 years after the premiere of "The Phantom Menace," Lloyd still deals with issues related to his diagnosis, and he was said to be receiving psychiatric treatment in 2024, according to his mother, Lisa Lloyd. From her statements, however, it appears there is still a light at the end of the tunnel for Jake Lloyd.

Note: Mental health professionals now use the singular term "schizophrenia" instead of "paranoid schizophrenia" since paranoia is but one symptom that can emerge from the condition — it's just one of the many aspects of mental health that continue to change as our learning on the subject evolves. When Lloyd was first diagnosed, the paranoid schizophrenia label was used.

After achieving worldwide recognition playing the young Anakin Skywalker, Jake Lloyd experienced bullying at school because of it. But that didn't stop the child actor from earning a high school diploma in 2007. Still, the bullying at school preceded the mental health issues he would experience later on in life.

"Other children were really mean to me," Lloyd said in an interview that appeared in the British tabloid the Daily Mail in 2012. "They would make the sound of the lightsaber every time they saw me," he continued. "It was totally mad."

On top of that, because of his busy promotion schedule behind the highly anticipated 1999 "Star Wars" entry — "The Phantom Menace" was the first new "Star Wars" film on the big screen in the 16 years since 1983's "Return of the Jedi" — Lloyd's "entire school life was really a living hell," he explained, "and I had to do up to 60 interviews a day."

For more on actors who struggled with their experiences after appearing in the legendary franchise, read our feature on lives that were nearly destroyed by "Star Wars."

A 12-year-old Jake Lloyd retired from acting in 2001 after completing his last Hollywood movie — that year's "Madison," a sports drama starring Lloyd as the son of a boat racing driver played by Jim Caviezel.

"Madison," despite getting a standing ovation at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, didn't come out in U.S. theaters until 2005 after issues arose in securing distribution. The late release made it appear as if Lloyd had hung in the Hollywood game for a bit longer. However, by the time "Madison" was made available to American theatergoers, the young actor had already been out of that world for some time. (In fact, "Madison" was actually filmed in 1999, the same year "The Phantom Menace" came out in theaters.) Lloyd has remained away from the silver screen ever since. However, he did work behind the scenes as a production assistant on a 2009 short film called "Peer Pressure," according to IMDb. While still a working actor, Lloyd also lent his voice to several "Star Wars" video games connected to the narrative of "The Phantom Menace," which were mainly released between 1999 and 2002.

Some have blamed fan response to "The Phantom Menace" for Jake's exit from the Hollywood scene, but Jake's mother, Lisa Lloyd, says that's not the case. "People say he quit because of 'Star Wars," Lisa told Scripps News in a 2024 interview. "Well, that's not true. It didn't have anything to do with 'Star Wars.' It had more to do with our family. And we were going through a divorce. Things were unsettled and kind of rough. And Jake didn't seem to be having a lot of fun auditioning anymore."

Jake Lloyd may have left acting for good in 2001, but he still completed his high school education, graduating from Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana, just after turning 18 in 2007.

Lloyd wasn't originally from Indiana, however. He was actually born on March 5, 1989, in Fort Collins, Colorado, before starting his acting career at the tender age of 7 by playing the character of Jimmy Sweet on four episodes of the NBC medical drama "ER" in 1996. That same year, he made his feature film debut in Nick Cassavetes' "Unhook the Stars," followed by his filmic turns in "Jingle All The Way" and the TV movie "Apollo 11."

Elsewhere on television, Lloyd had recurring roles on the NBC action drama "The Pretender" for several years in the late '90s. However, much like his early retirement from the big screen, Lloyd never returned to TV roles after his 2001 exit. But archival material from his "Star Wars" work has been used in subsequent efforts related to that universe, particularly in video games — Lloyd's young Anakin often crops up in clips or soundbites from his "Phantom Menace" appearance. And though his time in filmed entertainment was over, he still kept up appearances at comic book conventions such as Chicago Comic Con in 2010 and Philadelphia Comic Con in 2011.

While Jake Lloyd was still in high school, his mother, Lisa Lloyd, noticed that the former child star was beginning to exhibit some symptoms usually identified as being related to mental health issues.

"Jake started having some trouble in high school," Lisa told Scripps News in a 2024 interview. "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." Subsequent medical appointments led to an initial suspicion of bipolar disorder before Jake was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2008, one year after he graduated from high school. He had enrolled in courses at Columbia College in Chicago that fall, but once he was on campus, his symptoms seemed to worsen. He would tell his mother about seeing people with "black eyes" staring at him, and he said he would have conversations with "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart through his TV, according to Lisa. "He missed a lot of classes, and he was telling me that people were following him," she remembered. "He didn't tell us he was hearing voices at the time, but he was," Lisa added.

Lisa maintained it would've happened even without his "Star Wars" fame, as there is a history of schizophrenia on his father's side. "I believe that it was genetic," she explained. "And his psychiatrist also agrees that Jake was going to become schizophrenic."

Jake Lloyd was reported to have destroyed all his "Star Wars" memorabilia after the bullying he experienced at school due to his role in "The Phantom Menace," according to a 2012 Daily Mail article. However, in a 2024 interview with Scripps News, Lisa Lloyd said her son is still a huge fan, noting that he recently watched the extended universe series "Ahsoka." She even said she gave Jake an action figure of the show's lead character, Ahsoka Tano, as a birthday present. "He loves all the new 'Star Wars' stuff," Lisa said. "People think Jake hates 'Star Wars.' He loves it."

Despite speculation that has sometimes connected Jake's withdrawal from the acting world to negative fan response to "The Phantom Menace," Lisa said she "protected him from the backlash" after he appeared in the 1999 film. "He was just riding his bike outside, playing with his friends," she said. "He didn't know. He didn't care. 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."

Jake Lloyd may have found fame by playing the young Anakin Skywalker in "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace." But things seemed to unravel in his personal life after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2008, just a year after he graduated from high school. From there, various incidents occurred that required intervention for Lloyd's behavior.

In March 2015, authorities responded to an incident in Indianapolis. Per a police report, Jake Lloyd's mother, Lisa Lloyd, claimed she was knocked down and "stomped" on by Jake after he showed up at her house and started yelling, saying that she had ruined his life. The attack happened after Lisa attempted to bar his entry to the home. She declined to press charges, though she told the press at that time that Jake had started to show signs of schizophrenia when he was 19.

In June 2015, Jake Lloyd was arrested in Colleton County, South Carolina, under the name of Jake Broadbent, on the charges of reckless driving, driving without a license, and resisting arrest after he had led officers on a high-speed chase across multiple counties.

Indeed, police had pursued Lloyd for upwards of 25 miles before he crashed his vehicle on a side road off Interstate 95, according to various news reports. Kyle Strickland, a sergeant for the Colleton County Sheriff's Department, told NBC News that the chase started after the sheriff's office was made aware of a reckless driver in the area. "He starts passing cars on the double yellow line," Strickland said of Lloyd's behavior. He was "going head on into oncoming traffic" and driving "upwards of 100 miles per hour," the officer added.

Lloyd remained in Colleton County Detention Center for 10 months until his mother, Lisa Lloyd, was able to get him transferred to a psychiatric facility in April 2016. Years later, Lisa told Scripps News that Jake had been on a solo road trip from Florida to Canada at the time. However, when Jake was behind bars following the arrest, he was off of his medication. "I tried to call him and he wouldn't talk to me," Lisa explained. "Just flat out refused. I was talking to the people at the jail and trying to explain to them that he's off his medication. But they wouldn't give him his medication." She added, "As a mom, you're just pulling your hair out because your child needs help. You know that he's sick. You know that he's not going to get any better unless he gets some medication."

In early 2020, Jake Lloyd's mother, Lisa Lloyd, confirmed in a statement that Jake had received treatment in a psychiatric facility starting in 2016, explaining that he had now returned to a residence closer to his relatives.

"We would like to thank everyone for their kind words, their support, and goodwill," the statement began. "Jake has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but unfortunately he also has a symptom called anosognosia which causes a lack of insight into his illness."

As intimated, anosognosia is a condition where one's brain can't recognize one or more of the health conditions they have. Still, Jake's family wasn't about to give up hope. "He is still a kind and caring person and we hope to have him back to his fun and entertaining self as soon as possible," the statement added. "Jake will continue to make progress with the love and support you continue to show."

Jake Lloyd had a sister named Madison who was two years younger than him. Though not an actor herself, Madison did appear as an extra in the finale of "The Phantom Menace."

But in 2018, at the young age of 26, Madison unexpectedly died in her sleep of natural causes. It was a tragic event that, quite understandably, only worsened Jake's outlook on life and added to his struggle as he continued to receive treatment.

"He just couldn't handle it," Jake's mother, Lisa Lloyd, told Scripps News in a 2024 interview. "He didn't know how to process it. Sometimes he would just start saying that he really missed Madison. That's about as much of a conversation as we'd have about it. ... At least he was acknowledging it." Four years earlier, in a 2020 statement regarding Jake's health, Lisa said, "This only adds to the struggle he faces, which has been very difficult after the tragic loss of his younger sister, Madison."

In March 2023, Jake Lloyd experienced a mental health episode that endangered both him and his mother, Lisa Lloyd. She was driving him home one day after picking up food from McDonald's when "he said he wanted to turn the car off," Lisa recalled in a 2024 interview with Scripps News. "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."

After fellow drivers alerted the police, "they asked Jake some questions," Lisa recalled, illustrating Jake's frame of mind at the time. "He was talking to them, but none of it made sense. It was all word salad."

However, unlike what happened in 2015 when his arrest led to a 10-month stay behind bars before he was able to get psychiatric help, Jake was able to bypass jail and was directly admitted to a hospital later that day; subsequently, he was again transferred to a psychiatric facility, where he remained receiving treatment in 2024.

By spring 2024 — precisely 25 years after "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace" hit theaters — Jake Lloyd was still recovering in a psychiatric facility amid an 18-month stay there. His mother, Lisa Lloyd, told Scripps News in a 2024 interview that he appeared to be recovering well. "He's doing much better than I expected," she 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."

Lisa also clarified that Jake's acting days will remain in the past. But she suggested that she would still like him to get well enough to be able to do a little something related to the entertainment industry. "Jake loved filming 'Star Wars,' he had so much fun," she said, adding, "We're in a lot better place. And we do have a lot of things to look forward to. We all love Jake, and we want to be around him. I just want him to be happy."

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.