People: Lark Voorhies Gave Rambling, Incoherant Interviews; Mom Says Lark Voorhies Is Bipolar
People Magazine has sparked serious health concerns about former Saved By The Bell actress Lark Voorhies, 38.
Voorhies previously appeared on Yahoo’s The Yo Show where video showed that her looks had drastically deteriorated from only three years earlier when she posed for the People Magazine Saved By The Bell reunion issue. She looked great in 2009, even compared to 1989. Then suddenly, she didn’t. And people started to speculate what was medically, physically, and emotionally wrong with her.
And today’s piece in People Magazine has only worsened the speculation, with People’s concerns for her mental health and her mother’s claims the actress is suffering bipolar disorder. Specifically, People.com did a “series of interviews” with Voorhies during which “it was clear something wasn’t right” because she “would frequently stop mid-sentence and stare off, often mumbling to herself or to others who weren’t there.” The 38-year-old explains this away, though, “I have a strong spiritual sense,” she says, “You caught me in moments of pray [sic].” And she insists her concerned mother is over-protective and everything’s fine… but it’s clearly not fine.
While most of the cast from Saved by the Bell have remained in the spotlight, Lark Voorhies has largely been out of sight.
The former teen star, known to a generation of fans as the fashionable Lisa Turtle, denies anything is wrong, but after a bizarre Yahoo! video went viral earlier this year, some questioned whether drugs played a role. Voorhies adamantly denied it. Instead, her mother says, she has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
In a series of interviews with People, it was clear something wasn’t right. Voorhies, 38, would frequently stop mid-sentence and stare off, often mumbling to herself or to others who weren’t there.
“There are things that have traumatized her,” says Tricia, 64, who shares a home with her daughter in Pasadena, Calif. “I care deeply about my daughter and I want her to resume her life.”
Voorhies says her “over-loving” mother worries about her, but there’s no need. She says she is not sick and keeps busy by working on low-budget indie productions, recording music and self-publishing her own books. – via People Magazine.
“She’s trying so hard,” said Tricia. “She says she’s delayed, but she’s going to get there.”
The actress raised eyebrows earlier this year when she looked nothing like her old self in a May appearance on Yahoo’s The Yo Show, sparking rumors of plastic surgery and/or drug abuse.
Lark, who lives with her mother in Pasadena, California, said that mental health professionals don’t have the tools or understanding to help her cope with the demons that torment her. “They can’t explain it,” said Lark, who has been resistant to psychiatric care. “They can’t treat in. They don’t know about it.”
Lark, who is a Jehovah’s Witness, told the magazine their interview with her came at “a very powerful moment.”
“It’s like carrying on the interview in a hurricane,” the Nashville-born actress said. “Oh no. We’re alive in a major time of all-in-all prophecy… you caught me in moments of pray… I have a strong spiritual sense.”
Lark’s mother says the trauma of her 2001 divorce from ex-husband Miguel Coleman took a heavy toll on her daughter’s mental well-being, a sentiment seconded by the actress, who described the split as “a point of great depression.”
Dustin Diamond, Lark’s cast mate who played lovable nerd Screech on the show which ran from 1989-1994, recalled a recent run-in with his former co-star while filming the low-budget production Little Creeps.
“When we first saw each other, she gave me a big hug. She seemed normal; alive and great. And as the night went on, it just went wrong,” Diamond said, adding the actress took long pauses while delivering her lines and disappeared for long stretches between takes. “The person who said ‘Hi’ to me when she first showed up on-set was not the same person at the end of the night. It was like talking to two different people.” – via RadarOnline.
