Five days before Christmas 2024, Amy Locane emerged from her second stint in prison forever changed. The Melrose Place alum, 53, had served roughly six and a half years behind bars for a DWI crash in 2010 that killed a 60-year-old woman. First incarcerated from 2013 to 2015, Locane was plucked from her life and again locked up from 2020 to 2024 after her first sentence was deemed too lenient. (She had been convicted of second-degree vehicular homicide and assault by automobile.) “It feels very raw to be back into society,” Locane exclusively told Us Weekly. “I’m looking at the world with fresh eyes.”
Locane vividly remembers the day she was released. “My mom picked me up, and we went to Dunkin’ Donuts. When you’re inside [prison], you are so deprived. To have coffee with a real creamer is a huge treat.”
She also marveled at the simplicity of getting her order within moments. In fact, she was both excited and terrified by how much had changed in the time she’d been away — even something as simple as grocery shopping: “I was like, ‘How do I do this self-scanning stuff?’”
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During her darkest days at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Union Township, N.J., Locane looked for peace anywhere she could find it. “This bright fluorescent light gets you up at 6 or 7 a.m.,” she recalled. “So I’d get up at 5 a.m. to have my alone time.” Seven days a week, from noon to 6 p.m., she worked in the kitchen. Her responsibilities: cooking, feeding the masses and cleaning hundreds of pots. Her salary: $5 a day. “That’s considered a high-paying job,” she explains. But Locane didn’t mind getting her hands dirty. “It was intense manual labor,” she reported, “[but] I liked having some outlet, some form of exercise.”
For the mother of two, the most difficult thing about being incarcerated was being separated from her daughters, Paige, 18, and Avery, 16. (Their father filed for divorce from Locane in 2015 following her first release.) Her communications with the pair consisted of occasional visits and daily phone calls. “The strain of prison is that you don’t have anything to say, because your life stands still when everybody else has moved on,” she noted. “Teenagers don’t really talk a lot, [so we’d] be on the phone saying nothing — but at least we’re together.”
Locane’s relationship with her daughters is better now, but “some days are easier than others,” the Cry-Baby actress, who also starred in Airheads and Blue Sky, told Us. “It’s going to take some time.”
Time is something Locane has an abundance of — and since her first release, she’s been slowly rebuilding her life. Sober since 2010, Locane enjoys a quiet existence outside Princeton, N.J., attends a local Presbyterian church — she credits her faith for keeping her going during her most challenging moments — and works the front desk at a doctor’s office. She’s also a few credits shy of getting her associate degree, which she began pursuing during her second sentence. “When I went away, I was getting good feedback from my professors,” Locane said. “I learned I’m smart.”
She’s in no way ruling out a return to acting (“I would do it in a heartbeat”) after quitting showbiz in 2006, which may have been the catalyst for a bout with depression. “There was a void in my life because I had [acted] for so long, she explained. Would she sign on for the upcoming Melrose Place reboot starring Heather Locklear, Laura Leighton and Daphne Zuniga? Yes, she answered, “it would be very exciting to bring it back.”
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She’s also optimistic about the future — “I see me and my family kind of growing old together” — and she hopes to find love again one day. “I want to be married again,” she told Us. “If I do meet a guy now, I don’t have to worry about [telling them] ‘Oh, by the way, I might have to go away for a little bit,’ so that’ll be exciting.”
Despite taking steps toward normalcy, Locane still struggles to reconcile the pain she caused her loved ones (“To this day, I have a lot of remorse”) and the family of the woman who died. “It’s a very, very, very heavy reality to live with,” she shared of her feelings of guilt and remorse. “Every day when I’m praying [or] doing daily devotionals, I try to keep her in mind.”
Admittedly, it’s been a struggle starting fresh while others have moved on (“You can’t expect them to suffer with you,” she explained) and, at the same time, navigating a new life after others have left her behind. “Not everyone can stick with you for years like that, so you re-enter society and don’t have that support,” she said. ”It’s a very isolating experience and you have to deal with everything that comes your way by yourself.” The silver lining to it all? “You do know that you can handle anything — there is a great independence that comes from that.”
Though it’s unlikely Locane will ever be able to put her mistakes behind her completely — “I don’t think something that shaped you and your world so much could be something that you don’t think about” — she’s hoping to make the most of having another chance. She’s taking everything she’s learned with her, too. “They were hard lessons, but they say [lessons] have to be hard in order for you to grow,” Locane added. “I can’t let this define me.”
