Even with a pending divorce from Mariah Carey, 44, Nick Cannon, 34, still has time to defend and protect his long-time friend, Amanda Bynes, 28.
In a heart-tugging moment, The "America's Got Talent" host spoke to Huffington Post about his recent interaction with Bynes.
Revealing that Bynes reached out to him weeks ago, Cannon, who says the former Nickelodeon star is like "family" to him, wants people to understand what his friend is going through.
The celeb said the negative media attention that Bynes is receiving, saddens him.
"If this was a person who was in a mental hospital, would you do the same thing? But just because she's someone that is a public figure, we feel like it's fun to [make fun of her]. But no, this is someone who needs help, and rightly so, she was getting help. And I'm pretty sure she'll continue to get help again. It's things you have to deal with your entire life," quoted the publication of Cannon.
Cannon is speaking out again, in the hopes that people won't judge and put his friend in such a harsh spotlight. Bynes and Cannon worked together in the '90s in the Nickelodeon show "All That."
Last year, during the height of the actress' first meltdown, he penned an "an open letter to my sister, Amanda Bynes".
"I am always the first to say that fame and entertainment is one of the best and easiest occupations to ever have, but one must know how to navigate through the matrix or you may find yourself in a very dark hole," wrote Cannon.
He continued: "No one can make it through anything alone ... We all end up alone in that dark hole at some point in our lives and if you don't have a foundation of friends and family to help bring you up and out it makes that journey long and detrimental."
After months of silence from the former child star while under her mother's temporary conservatorship, it's been a rough couple of days for Bynes as she announced via Twitter that she's now engaged to a 19-year-old bait shop employee named Caleb. Before that, she was arrested for her second DUI offense. She also made headlines when she shoplifted a $200 hat from Barney's, which she says was a misunderstanding.
Meanwhile, sources told E! News that Cannon and Carey have been living apart. It is believed that the troubled relationship is due to Nick's infidellity.
In a recent concert, Carey changed the words of a Billie Holiday song and went on to say: "I know you cheated, motherf--ker."
