Encore: Is the Lohanissance Real?

Summary

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Infamous Podcast – Encore: Is the Lohanissance Real?

Date: August 21, 2025
Hosts: Vanessa Grigoriadis, Natalie Robehmed
Featured Journalists: Evgenia Peretz, Brennan Kilbane, Jill Ashkanian

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Overview

This encore episode revisits Lindsay Lohan's turbulent journey from beloved teen star to media pariah and examines her ongoing comeback—her so-called "Lohanissance." The hosts resurface key interviews with journalists who've interacted with Lohan at her highest and lowest moments, reflecting on the factors that drove her downfall and exploring whether her recent return constitutes a true public and industry renaissance.

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Main Discussion Themes

1. Lindsay’s Return: The Nostalgia Factor

• Opening Discussion: Natalie Robehmed recounts attending the new Lindsay Lohan movie Freakier Friday and reflects on Lohan’s box office resurgence.
• The hosts frame the movie not necessarily as a critical success, but as an emotional touchstone for millennials, highlighting Lohan’s evolution from teen star to mother—both on and off-screen.
• Lohan’s latest projects, from Netflix rom-coms to major studio films, are discussed as proof that she’s back in the public eye, even if critical reception is mixed.

“It was kind of a delight to see Lindsay back on the big screen in a real movie. And as I said, it's not necessarily good, but that's sort of not the point. It's a nostalgia watch for millennials like me, who grew up with Lindsay and now perhaps have their own kids.”
— Natalie Robehmed (01:56)

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2. Meteoric Rise: Star Quality in the Early 2000s

• Career Highlights: The team replays clips and recalls hits like The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, and Mean Girls.
• Testimonials from icons:
  • Tina Fey: Lohan had "a spongy mind, quick to memorize."
  • Meryl Streep: She was “almost preternaturally alive on camera.” (07:48)
• Lohan’s early magnetism and work ethic are contrasted with the cult of celebrity that soon surrounded her.

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3. The Fall: Tabloid Culture and Family Dysfunction

• Evgenia Peretz (11:32) recounts profiling Lohan in 2006 at the peak of her tabloid notoriety, emphasizing Lohan’s mix of charisma, vulnerability, and recklessness.
• Anecdotes paint a picture of Lohan as simultaneously hounded and enabled by those around her—including her mother Dina and father Michael.
  • Dina’s denial: “Isn't that what you do when you’re 18? You go out partying?” (12:58)
  • Michael’s violence and instability are recounted, as are Lindsay’s public and private struggles with addiction and a traumatic family dynamic.

“She talks about having an intervention where Amy Poehler and Lorne Michaels, after she was on SNL, say, ‘We've seen John Belushi and other people who are really talented have drug problems and die ... we're worried about you.’ And she's telling you about this, and then her mother is trying to tell you that you're like a nervous Nelly, right?”
— Vanessa Grigoriadis (13:30)

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4. The Machine: Publicists, Media, and Image Management

• Lohan’s confessional moments as well as her openness about addiction and eating disorders stood in contrast to the denials from her representatives and family.
• Publicist pressure: Evgenia recounts last-minute pleas to erase Lohan’s own admissions of drug use and bulimia from her Vanity Fair profile.

“In the interview, Lindsay had told me about her partying and drug use, and [her publicist] was like, you gotta take that out, you gotta take that out. ... And I was like, well, she talked about it and she was like, well, I don’t know how I’m going to spin it ... [but] it’s on tape.”
— Evgenia Peretz (16:22—17:31)

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5. Tabloid Frenzy and Celebrity Photographer Insights

• Jill Ashkanian, longtime celebrity photographer, shares anecdotes about the peak “it girl” image:
  • Lohan staged her own paparazzi moments—waiting inside boutiques until a sufficient crowd had gathered (24:10–25:40).
  • The frenzy over candid photos of “it girls” like Lindsay could earn photographers thousands.

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6. The Comeback Attempts: Recasting Herself & International Reinvention

• Lohan’s efforts to reclaim her narrative included emulating tragic icons like Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor (26:15–26:48).
• Attempts to become a pop singer, entrepreneur (Mykonos beach club/MTV reality show), and dramatic actress are discussed, most marked by fleeting or ill-fated results.
• Notably, a much-scrutinized video surfaces of Lohan’s bizarre attempt to “save” refugee children—an episode her publicists blocked reporters from discussing.

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7. The London and Dubai Chapters: Distance and Privacy

• Brennan Kilbane’s insights on Lindsay’s move to London (2014), including theatre work, press scrutiny, and the yearning for escape from US tabloids (29:06–29:52).
• Host Natalie Robehmed explains why Dubai is the perfect place for Lindsay:
  • No paparazzi
  • Strict drug laws (discouraging relapse)
  • Celebrity-friendly culture and government largesse
  • Physical and emotional distance from frenetic media and family pressures (35:39–37:43)
• Brennan notes Lindsay’s new approach: making Dubai her luxurious, private sanctuary (38:05–38:52).

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8. The "Lohanissance": Is It Real or a Mirage?

• Netflix two-picture deal (39:13): Pivoting into warm, nostalgic roles that lean into her millennial iconography.
• The hosts and Brennan compare Lohan’s come-back to Paris Hilton’s and Britney Spears’s, asking why Lindsay hasn’t been embraced as fully by the public.

“It’s almost like she’s shown us everything. But has she shown us enough? Do we feel like we know the real Lindsay?”
— Brennan Kilbane (40:43)

• The idea surfaces that Lindsay’s self-imposed distance—geographically and emotionally—prevents a true tabloid-to-triumph public rehabilitation, unlike her peers.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Lindsay’s Nostalgic Appeal:
  “It’s a nostalgia watch for millennials like me, who grew up with Lindsay and now perhaps have their own kids.”
  — Natalie Robehmed (01:56)

• On Early Star Power:
  “Meryl Streep said that she was almost preternaturally alive on camera, which is pretty much the highest compliment you can get as an actor.”
  — Vanessa Grigoriadis (07:48)

• On Family Dysfunction:
  “She had this like legitimately traumatic family life...And she’s screaming like, daughter to father, daughter to father. It was like this extremely emotional video at the time...”
  — Evgenia Peretz (15:04)

• On Hollywood’s Manipulation:
  “You can see from a publicist perspective. It’s like, okay, everybody knows she’s out, she’s drinking, she’s doing drugs. We don’t want to put on the top of that, oh my God. She’s also bulimic. Right?”
  — Vanessa Grigoriadis (18:15)

• On Paparazzi Collusion:
  “She put on this whole outfit and a cute little hat, and she looked out the window. She goes, well, there's not enough paparazzi here. I'll wait till there's more. I remember thinking, that was so freaking funny.”
  — Jill Ashkanian (25:34)

• On Lindsay's Choice of Dubai for Exile:
  “There is not paparazzi. Lindsay is not going to be hounded...and then I think the other thing that maybe gets left out a little bit from this narrative is that there are also incredibly strict drug laws in Dubai. So for that reason that it's hard to get your hands on drugs.”
  — Natalie Robehmed (37:05)

• On the Limits of Public Redemption:
  “It’s almost like she’s shown us everything. But has she shown us enough? Do we feel like we know the real Lindsay?”
  — Brennan Kilbane (40:43)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:00–03:00: Discussion of Freakier Friday and Lohan’s recent career “comeback”
• 08:10–18:56: Evgenia Peretz recalls her 2006 profile of Lohan, the family dynamic, publicist interference, and eating disorder revelations
• 24:10–25:40: Paparazzi insight, staging photo ops, and the crazy economics of gossip journalism
• 26:15–28:54: Lohan as Marilyn/Elizabeth Taylor, and her struggles post-Hollywood
• 29:06–29:52: The London attempt and persistent media scrutiny
• 31:37–32:29: The infamous refugee video incident in Greece
• 35:39–37:43: Analysis of Lohan’s move to Dubai, why it’s a fit, and its personal/professional impact
• 39:13–41:14: The Netflix deal, questions about public forgiveness, and Lindsay’s guarded persona

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Final Thoughts

The episode concludes that while Lindsay Lohan may be experiencing a resurgence in work and public affection, the question of whether she’s achieved a true “Lohanissance” remains open. Her carefully guarded personal life, chosen physical distance, and self-imposed privacy make her less accessible and perhaps less re-embraced than other aughts icons like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Yet, as the hosts reflect, perhaps the real triumph is Lohan’s ability to survive—and thrive—on her own terms.

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Transcript

[Natalie Robermed]

It's Wednesday. Adams, I see you're trying to distract.

[Evgenia Peretz]

Yourself from your own banal thoughts.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Let me help. Here's a recording thing made of my.

[Evgenia Peretz]

Latest root Canal.

[Natalie Robermed]

Wednesday Season 2 is.

[Lindsay Lohan]

Now playing only on Netflix.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Campside Media.

[Natalie Robermed]

Hello, and welcome back to Infamous, a podcast from Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media. I'm Natalie Robermed. So last week, I did one of the best activities you can do on a sweltering late summer day. I went to the cinema with a friend. We settled into our seats, popcorn in hand, for a new movie from a very beloved old star, Lindsay Lohan.

[Lindsay Lohan]

As teenagers, we have no power, but as adults, we can break our parents up for good.

[Natalie Robermed]

We were there to watch Freakier Friday, the sequel to the body swap comedy Freaky Friday from the early 2000s. That movie was an absolute classic when I was younger, and it was prime Lindsay Lohan. It came out the year before Mean Girls and five years after Parent Trap. So it really captured Lindsay Lohan the teenager before she became Lindsay Lohan the party girl. And now, more than 20 years later, she's back on our screens as Lindsay Lohan the mother. In the movie, she plays a single parent of a teenage girl. And as you can probably guess, there's another body swap situation and hijinks ensue. And of course, we all learn a lesson about the meaning of family, et cetera, et cetera. This marks Lindsay Lohan's best box office score in more than two decades. And it really signals that Lindsay is back after a long hiatus and then a couple of years in streaming purgatory, where she starred in a series of Hallmark esque Netflix movies. I gotta say, it was kind of a delight to see Lindsay back on the big screen in a real movie. And as I said, it's not necessarily good, but that's sort of not the point. It's a nostalgia watch for millennials like me, who grew up with Lindsay and now perhaps have their own kids. So last year we did an episode about Lindsay Lohan's rise, fall and renaissance and talked to some really fantastic journalists who spent quite a bit of time with Lindsay, including during her messy days. Now that she seems really back, like big Disney movie back, we wanted to reshare those conversations, so we hope you enjoy.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

It's 2004 and Lindsay Lohan walks out onto a stage in a little black dress and gold heels.

[Evgenia Peretz]

Thanks, guys.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

This is so weird.

[Lindsay Lohan]

I cannot believe I'm hosting Saturday Night live. I'm only 17, so this is insane.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

She's already reached a milestone that so many actors dream of. She's hosting Saturday Night Live.

[Lindsay Lohan]

Anyway, you might know me as the girl from Freaky Friday or as the two girls from the Parent Trap.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

When I was little, in her big breakout role, she played twins. One was American and one was British. The movie's called the Parent Trap.

[Natalie Robermed]

Why is everyone staring?

[Lindsay Lohan]

Don't you see it? See what?

[Natalie Robermed]

The resemblance between us.

[Lindsay Lohan]

Resemblance?

[Natalie Robermed]

Between you and me.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

The Parent Trap was actually a good movie. I mean, Nancy Meyers directed it, and Natasha Richardson and Dennis Quaid played her parents. And Lindsay Lohan went on to get so many more great roles opposite other great actors, like Freaky Friday, that body swap comedy with Jamie Lee Curtis as Lindsay's mom.

[Lindsay Lohan]

What have you done to my earrings? Mom, it's an earring. Take it out. Take it out right now. No, it looks cool. Don't start with me. And those clothes are going my first thing tomorrow.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Of course, Lindsay also starred in the now cult classic film Mean Girls.

[Lindsay Lohan]

The weird thing about hanging out with Regina was that I could hate her, and at the same time, I still wanted her to like me.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Later, she acted in a film that absolutely no one remembers, A Prairie Home Companion. But at least her mom was played by Meryl Streep. So back in 2004, when Lindsay hosted SNL for the first time, it seemed like the beginning of her ascent. And she went on to host SNL three more times. But the most recent time she hosted, in 2012, her monologue was very, very different.

[Lindsay Lohan]

I feel lucky and grateful to be here tonight. And that's why I really want to thank all of my friends at SNL who trusted me enough to have me back. You know, this studio feels like a home to me. Wait, so the alarm goes off if I leave the stage? I thought it was only if I left the studio. And I thought you guys trusted me.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

The joke, of course, was that by then, Lindsay had been in and out of court, jail, rehab, and community service at, I'm not even kidding, a morgue in la.

[Brennan Kilbane]

Next week, she'll begin serving her sentence as a janitor in the Los Angeles county morgue.

[Lindsay Lohan]

I'm grateful that, you know, I've learned from it. It's helped me.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

At just 25 years old, she's attempting a comeback. But from this time, Lindsay's once promising career has also had one foot in the grave, although she has definitely gotten better. And she's booked some Netflix rom coms. The first one's called Falling for Christmas, and she gets engaged in it.

[Natalie Robermed]

Sierra Belmont.

[Evgenia Peretz]

Will you marry me?

[Natalie Robermed]

Oh, Tad. Let's make it official, shall we?

[Brennan Kilbane]

Our first social media post as an engaged couple.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

A new movie's about to come out with Lindsay, too. It's called Irish Wish.

[Brennan Kilbane]

What brings you to Ireland?

[Evgenia Peretz]

A wedding.

[Brennan Kilbane]

Congratulations.

[Lindsay Lohan]

Oh, no, it's not mine. It's my friend's.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

So as fans of Lindsay's, which we are, should we be happy with where she is now? Or has something gone wrong that can't be fixed? Does she have a shot at a real comeback?

[Natalie Robermed]

From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is infamous. I'm Natalie Robomed.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

And I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis. This week, we're talking about the fall of Lindsay Lohan and her struggle to repair her image plus re establish herself as a serious actor.

[Natalie Robermed]

As a kid and a teenager, Lindsay Lohan was this amazing, impressive talent with so much potential. Everywhere you look, Lindsay Lohan is right there. She's on the COVID of the magazine.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

One of our staff went out and.

[Brennan Kilbane]

Bought all the teen magazines that he could find in a very extensive newsstand.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

And he was trying to find a.

[Brennan Kilbane]

Magazine that didn't have an article on Lindsay Lohan.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Couldn't do it.

[Natalie Robermed]

Tina Fey said Lindsay had a really quick to memorize spongy mind.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Right. And Meryl Streep said that she was almost preternaturally alive on camera, which is pretty much the highest compliment you can get as an actor.

[Evgenia Peretz]

Right.

[Natalie Robermed]

But like a lot of child actors, things sort of went haywire in her twenties. She partied too much, shopped too much, drank too much, and did a lot of drugs.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I talked with Evgenia Peretz, who did a big story on Lindsay Lohan and spent quite a bit of time with her just as things were starting to go awry in Lindsay's life. So, Evgenia, wonderful writer and friend, so nice to talk to you.

[Evgenia Peretz]

Thank you for having me.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

So you wrote this very long and very memorable profile of Lindsay Lohan in Vanity Fair. What point in Lindsay's life was this?

[Evgenia Peretz]

So this was in 2006, and she was just coming off of being red hot in the tabloids, you know, alongside Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie and being stalked by the paparazzi and looking really skinny and sort of a strange orange hue. And she was inviting a lot of speculation about her life and her partying and that kind of thing. And so when we met, that was the narrative. And she was super frank with me, and I was just, like, enamored with her right off the bat. I thought she was so fun. I thought she Was so warm. She hugged me hello, and I was like, ooh, she smells nice, and her skin is really soft. And, you know, she was very enchanting, bubbly, frank, kind of mischievous person.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Where did you meet her?

[Evgenia Peretz]

Okay, the first time we met, it was at the Chateau Marmont, and she was. She was actually living there because she was getting her apartment renovated or something, and everyone who worked there adored her. And she reminded me of Eloise at the Plaza.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Oh, wow.

[Evgenia Peretz]

Okay. And she just owned the place and was very chatty with all the staff and knew all the rooms and just sort of made it her home. It was. It was kind of sweet.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

So she was an elfin presence, sort of just. Yeah, scurrying about this hotel that we all loved back then, which is, in retrospect, was like, a little bit of a shabby hotel, but. Okay.

[Evgenia Peretz]

Yeah, yeah. No, it was very, like. It was very of the moment.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

And she's, like, 19 years old at this point. Right. So she's done Mean Girls, she's done the Parent Trap. She's, I guess, on her press tour for Herbie, the car movie. That is, like, when things started to go wrong, right?

[Evgenia Peretz]

Yes. That's when things started really going downhill, and she didn't show up on the set, and people were really worried. So I guess Herbie was, like, at the low point. So this was after Herbie, but Lindsay's in the tabloids all the time, and I feel like the tabloids were still such a big thing at that point. Watching these young girls in la, like, race around and get into trouble and go to dumb nightclubs, and she was totally at the center of that. It was a mess. But I do remember the paparazzi. This was another visit I had with her. This was in Manhattan, and she was shooting a video for a song she had written, and there was tons of paparazzi staked outside her trailer. Unsavory character.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Yeah.

[Evgenia Peretz]

And she was hounded by them constantly, but also, like, had a sort of breezy relationship with them because she's a charming person, even though she is. Was obviously really troubled and complicated. She just had this, like, unbelievable charisma and kind of emotional intelligence. But, yeah, it's interesting if you look back at Mean Girls and she seemed to be absolutely the rising star.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

It's fascinating because the time that you talked to her, it seemed like it didn't have to go this way. Did you feel that. That she still had career potential?

[Natalie Robermed]

I did.

[Evgenia Peretz]

I did. I mean, I don't know really what happened. You know, her Mother obviously had an outsized role in her career. And Dina is, like, this brassy Long island woman who was, like, a former Rockette, and she was married to Lindsay's father, who was, like, super volatile and in and out of jail. And you got the feeling that Lindsay's career was, like, the most exciting thing that had ever happened to Dina. And Lindsay was way more honest and frank about what she'd gone through, and she was very refreshing in that way. But, like, Dina was, like, just wanted to shut that all down. And Dina was, like, so exasperated with me and the questions I was asking. And I remember at some point, I was asking about what Lindsay had told me about, like, her very troubled period and, you know, partying all the time, and she was like, isn't that what you do when you're 18? You go out partying? That was, like, the world she was coming from. Maybe Dina just was too big an influence in her life. Who knows?

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I mean, it is really shocking because you basically, you know, you have Lindsay sort of opening up to you, right? You're sitting at the chateau. You go multiple places with her, but she's saying things like, I was sick, and everyone was scared. I had people sit me down and say, you're gonna die if you don't take care of yourself. She talks about having an intervention where Amy Poehler and Lorne Michaels, after she was on snl, say, we've seen John Belushi and other people who are really talented have drug problems and die. You know, and we're worried about you, and. And she's telling you about this, and then her mother is trying to tell you that you're like a nervous Nelly, right?

[Evgenia Peretz]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think if Lindsay had really taken to heart what people like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were saying, maybe it could have turned out differently.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

What role do you think her father played in this? I mean, I had almost forgotten that he had such a violent past and that she, of course, had written pop songs about him. And you even went to the filming of a video that was about her life with her father.

[Evgenia Peretz]

Her dad was in and out of jail for assault, driving under the influence, violating restraining orders. Lindsay told me that he had kidnapped her from the courthouse when he was in some kind of proceeding with Dina, and he was just a very scary presence in their life. She told me about some story where he was sort of stalking the family, and he came into the house, and she was in the bathroom, and he was hiding behind the shower curtain and jumped out at her. So she had this like legitimately traumatic family life. She wrote this song about him that was very dramatic. I seem to remember her like in a gown with running mascara in a room that was supposed to be her childhood bedroom. And she's screaming like, daughter to father, daughter to father. It was like this extremely emotional video at the time, I think Tommy Mottola. I got like a email quote from him. He was like, that's one of the greatest pop songs I've ever heard. Not quite, but.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

So you don't think she could have made it as pop star.

[Evgenia Peretz]

She was dabbling in that. I'd like completely forgotten that she was trying to do that for a hot minute.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

And so what about her publicist? This publicist I have certainly had my run ins with as well.

[Evgenia Peretz]

So she's been around forever, representing tons of, tons of a list celebrities. And I understand why she was sort of like hovering and, and worried because like Lindsay didn't have the greatest reputation. And then at some point after one of our interviews, I think she called me. In the interview, Lindsay had told me about her partying and drug use. And Leslie called me and was like, you, you gotta take that out, you gotta take that out. And I was like, why? She talked about it and she was like, well, I don't know how I'm going to spin it, so you know, that's not really my problem. But then it got really weird. So I would say we got on very, very well. And Lindsay was kind of in a confessional mode. And she told me about how she had lost all this weight and how she was making herself sick and she was talking very frankly about an eating disorder. So that's what I wrote about. And of course I tape recorded the conversation because that's what you do. And I remember the piece came out and I initially got an email that was like, we love it, it's great. And then two days later it was a total about face. And it was, Lindsay never had an eating disorder. This is a lie, this never happened. And I was just like, well, she talked about it, it's on tape. And that kind of shut her up. But it was one of those things where it's like they're meeting behind the scenes and like, oh, this actually isn't so great and Lindsay's gonna come across poorly. But I thought, just leave it alone. I think she comes across very well and very honest. But I have a feeling it made it into some tabloid that they were not happy about it.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I mean, it's interesting because you can see from a publicist perspective. It's like, okay, well, everybod, everybody knows she's out, she's drinking, she's doing drugs. We don't want to put on the top of that, oh, my God. She's also bulimic. Right. But when you're dealing with somebody who is both very open and also has these genuine problems and is this age, it's sort of like the bed has been made. Right? Like, you can't tell somebody like that. Don't confess anything. She's shooting a video about her father being violent, you know?

[Evgenia Peretz]

Exactly. And I almost think, like, that kind of thing wouldn't happen today because I feel like celebrities are much more frank about all of their struggles, their mental health struggles, all sorts of things. And it's almost like part of their narrative and selling point and how they're connecting to people. But I think there was this inclination at that time to still be like, oh, we're still gonna put out these shiny, perfect images of our stars. And it just strikes me as so silly. A few years after this whole thing, I was on my way back from la, and it was a work trip, and that's why I was flying business. I feel like I need to explain that. And in the seat in front of me was Lindsay Lohan. And I was like, oh, my God, is she gonna recognize me? Like, does she hate me? Does she like me? And I just sort of, like, tried to hide. And there was this guy next to her who looked sort of drunk, shabby and wearing, like, really tacky, weird clothing, longish hair and sort of weathered skin in his 60s or something. Anyway, he was sitting right next to her. And we land at JFK in the morning. It was a red eye. And we all get up, and he turns to her and he's like, hey, Lindsay, it's Eddie. It's Eddie Money. Tell your mom that Eddie Money says hi. And it was just like, oh, it was just kind of. Kind of sad. It was like Dina and Eddie Money.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Eddie Money, if you don't know, wasn't just some guy from Long Island. He was actually a pretty big singer in the 70s and 80s, and also pretty cheesy, even back then. Anyway, when Evgenia met with Lindsay, things were about to take a turn for the worse in her life. She would struggle with addiction, damage to her career, and end up in a revolving door between jail and rehab for years.

[Natalie Robermed]

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[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I just want to say that at the same time all of this was going on, every writer in New York was getting a call to ghost write a Lindsay Lohan biography, including me. But she wouldn't show up to the meetings and eventually would just fizzle out. In Los Angeles, the paparazzi were constantly following Lindsay around, covering her every move. Jill Ashkanian has been a celebrity photographer fellow for years and she covered Lindsay.

[Jill Ashkanian]

Back in the day she's in a Mercedes. She's driving fast. You know, she's partying at night. And, I mean, at the time, I think she was like, 18 or 19. That gold rush started just like us. A picture of Lindsay pumping gas could make, you know, five, $10,000. I have one funny story about Lindsay. And, you know, all those girls, they wanted. They wanted free stuff from designers and all that stuff like that. And at Kitson, you know, the different people who met, like, seven for all mankind and true religion and all this stuff, they wanted their clothes on these it. Girls, please, can you get. Can you get this? Give it to Lindsay, give it to Brittany, give it to Jessica, give it to Paris. Give it to whatever. So Lindsay was in there one day, and I, you know, the. And I were there, and she says, well, you know, they, you know, Lindsay, you know, these different designers want you to wear their stuff. She says, well, wear it. And he goes, but you need to be photographed leaving. And she says, okay, you know, so the paparazzi were kind of gathering outside, and she put on this whole outfit and a cute little hat, and she looked out the window. She goes, well, there's not enough paparazzi here. I'll wait till there's more. I remember thinking, that was so freaking funny.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

But Jill remembers something allegedly happening with her dad, Michael Lohan, that wasn't quite as funny.

[Jill Ashkanian]

Us Weekly sent a reporter because her dad was going to give us information. Michael Lohan. So we sent a reporter. He ended up sleeping with our reporter. And then I think her parents were divorced at that time. And I just pictured that this girl, I mean, the whole parents and the crazy. The crazy broken up parents and the dysfunction that was going on in her life, and she survived.

[Natalie Robermed]

So as Lindsay struggled, she began to reach for iconic women to emulate women who had also lived in the spotlight and suffered from addiction problems, like Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. She did a photo shoot recreating Marilyn Monroe's final photo shoot before her death of an overdose, which is pretty dark. And then she played Elizabeth Taylor in a Lifetime biopic.

[Lindsay Lohan]

I was lucky enough because I do relate to Elizabeth Taylor in a lot of ways.

[Natalie Robermed]

Yeah.

[Evgenia Peretz]

And there are a lot of parallels.

[Lindsay Lohan]

Between the two of you, from being.

[Evgenia Peretz]

A child actor to your intense public scrutiny.

[Natalie Robermed]

Lindsay was going through real difficult problems with addiction and family drama. I spoke with Brennan Kilbane, a journalist who met Lindsay last year for a big profile in Allure magazine. So let's go back to those kind of dark days of sort of the. The 2010s. Can you kind of describe what was going on with Lindsay in terms of the court, the rehab, or, you know, the jail, community service stuff? Can you just like, paint a little picture of that? Of that dark time?

[Brennan Kilbane]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Her publicity team was very adamant going into our interview that the past was not to be discussed.

[Natalie Robermed]

Oh, interesting.

[Brennan Kilbane]

Yes, yes. Which is, of course, not unusual. You know, I think nowadays we get a lot of intervention from the publicist, and I think that magazines have less bargaining power than they used to. It's felt like lately we have been recontextualizing the way we treated people like Lindsay, who were kind of coming up in the public eye, who were basically children. So I really wanted to talk about that. And of course, as soon as I brought it up, you know, it was an immediate shutdown from the. From the publicist. But. But I would say that, you know, in the opening of the 2010s, the troubled image of Lindsay Lohan sort of lives in our mind. Right. Like, she's not working as much as she used to be. She's this working actress again. But then her run would be cut short for some reason. And, you know, you kind of get the sense that something is going on. And I really think about 2014 as being kind of turning point, because it's when she left America to move to London, and it's also when her interviews with Oprah came out. As you were talking about going back, you know, the six times that you've been to rehab and all of the dysfunction around you.

[Natalie Robermed]

And do you think you are or were addicted to chaos?

[Lindsay Lohan]

I think so, yeah. Really, it was a comfortable chaos for me.

[Brennan Kilbane]

We now think of these Oprah moments as being these kind of vindicating moments for young, troubled starlets. But that was not, you know, the case for Lindsay.

[Natalie Robermed]

So 2014, I feel like she's kind of finally free of all these troubles. And as you said, she moves to London, and that feels like a turning point. Can you tell me a bit of what her life in London was like? Like, what was she there to do?

[Brennan Kilbane]

Main reason she was in London was the David Mamet play, Speed the Plow. It was a West End play that she was cast in. There were good reviews, and there were not so good reviews. I know that there were some issues with forgetting lines. And this is Lindsay. Like, people are not going to give her the benefit of anything. You know, people are waiting to tear her down, as they always have. So 2014, she was doing all of these interviews in London. She moves to London. She's like, I love it here. I can go for a run in the park and no one bothers me. But, you know, the British press is still ruthless, and she's being picked apart constantly. And then by the end of the year, it seemed like that was the right time for her to go.

[Natalie Robermed]

After Lindsay left London, she started spending a lot of time in Greece. She opened a club in Athens in 2016, and then a beach club in Mykonos that became the center of an MTV reality show called Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club.

[Lindsay Lohan]

I'm Lindsay Lohan. I live my life in the public eye. People judge me every second. It's so easy to just keep going, going, going, going. But sometimes you have to stop. Oh, I disappeared. Now I want to do things differently. I want to be my own boss.

[Natalie Robermed]

This was yet another time that Lindsay was going to start over. This time, it would finally stick. This would be her comeback as an entrepreneur, a girl boss.

[Brennan Kilbane]

By her telling, this was a beach where she visited with this man she was dating, and he was not good to her. She has accused him publicly of abuse. And one of these instances was on this beach. They got into an altercation, and he hit her. And so she. She on the show talks about how it was that beach that Lohan Beach Club was opened up on. And she said that the humiliation and the shame of that moment. She looked around and she was like, I want to own this beach one day. And so that's kind of what she did with the club. And she kind of joked about that with me. You know, everyone saw her going out to clubs, so why not open her own? But I think the Mykonos beach Club has since closed. I know that they didn't renew it for. They didn't renew the show for a second season.

[Natalie Robermed]

But there's also that very dark video of her trying to take a refugee child away from its mother to the hotel. Like, do you know what happened there? I mean, I'm assuming you didn't get to talk to her about it, but I'm sure that is.

[Brennan Kilbane]

That would have been. The publicist would have shot me in the head and, you know, certainly drawn you out. You certainly roped me and taken me away. If I had asked about that. Yeah, I don't know. I just know that there was the Syrian refugee crisis really, really radicalized Lindsay in a way that I don't think any of us saw coming.

[Lindsay Lohan]

Tell me your story so I can help you. Do you want to stay in a hotel tonight? Do you want to watch movies? You should not have them on the floor. You should be a hard working woman and you should be doing what you do for your children so they have a better life. And if someone's offering them a home and a bed, which is me at this moment, give it to them. Look what's happening. They're trafficking children.

[Natalie Robermed]

The video is difficult to watch and it ends with the mother of these children hitting Lindsay to keep her away from the kids. It's not clear what was going on with Lindsay when she started harassing these people and all she ever really said about it was that she'd read the situation wrong and made a mistake. In any case, the beach club had failed and her time in Greece was coming to an end. It was another attempt at a comeback that had gone so completely off the.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Rails.

[Natalie Robermed]

But Lindsay would soon try again.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

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[Brennan Kilbane]

Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is a back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

[Natalie Robermed]

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[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

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[Natalie Robermed]

Busy taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com so you may have noticed that in that strange, strange video, Lindsay was talking with differently during all her travels, she had somehow adopted a new accent.

[Brennan Kilbane]

If you've heard Lindsay Lohan speak in an interview lately, you might have noticed she doesn't sound like she used to.

[Lindsay Lohan]

This is just me holding it with me, walking, going. Whereas the paparazzi may be across the street. I didn't know and they crucified me for it in America. They made me seem like Satan.

[Brennan Kilbane]

Reference. Here's how Lindsay spoke when ET last caught up with her in 2013 how much fun was it to make the movie with T?

[Lindsay Lohan]

It was really fun. He's a really nice guy.

[Natalie Robermed]

Perhaps this new accent was part of Lindsay reinventing herself as an international woman, not an American child star with a troubled past. So it makes sense then that she'd move to a place that is overwhelmingly comprised of expats. Dubai. Yep. The whole time Lindsay was working and partying in Greece, her residence was actually in Dubai. Vanessa and I talked about it.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I don't even think I realized she was living in Dubai until we started working on this episode. So Natalie, as you may know from listening to one of our other podcast episodes in this series called Dubai's Missing Princesses, Natalie grew up in Dubai. She now lives in la. But why do you think Lindsay would move to Dubai? Like, it just seems so weird and out of left field.

[Natalie Robermed]

Yeah, I think it definitely is from the outside and there were there. There have been a couple images that have startled me. Like seeing Lindsay Lohan pose with Dubai police on her Instagram.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Oh my God.

[Jill Ashkanian]

Jesus.

[Natalie Robermed]

Several years ago. But yeah, as I guess the as infamous as official Dubai correspondent, it doesn't seem that strange to me when I think about it that Lindsay would move there. There's lots of reasons. Like one, Dubai really, really courts celebrities and kind of, I think over the last decade plus has kind of really advertised itself as a safe haven for celebs. Not only do they invite them to take lavish trips, sometimes even giving them villas on the palm or wherever.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, tell us about the palm. So they basically made these like fake islands that all look like palm trees.

[Natalie Robermed]

Right. They dredged the sea to create these totally man made palm shaped islands off the coast of Dubai. And there are houses on the palm fronds and sort of businesses. You can drive up the main trunk, if you will. And there's an Atlantis resort at the end of that trunk.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Oh my God. So it's like a faux Miami, basically.

[Natalie Robermed]

Yeah, yeah, faux Miami with slightly more conservative clothing, just like. But the other thing that's different to say in Miami and one of the reasons why somebody like Lindsay would want to go there is that there is no paparazzi. Privacy laws are incredibly strict.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Oh, okay.

[Natalie Robermed]

So she's not, she's just not going to get bothered. So there is not paparazzi. Lindsay is not going to be hounded by men on motorbikes or people waiting outside.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

There's nobody leaking when she, at 5 in the morning is like, I want like seven tubs of caviar to be delivered Right now to my residence. Like, nobody's making that.

[Natalie Robermed]

Exactly, exactly. And then I think the other thing that maybe gets left out a little bit from this narrative is that there are also incredibly strict drug laws in Dubai. So for that reason that it's hard to get your hands on drugs.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Right. And nobody wants to end up in a Dubai prison, that is for sure.

[Natalie Robermed]

No, absolutely not. So if you're somebody who has, like, publicly struggled with substance abuse in the past, being somewhere where you can't even get your hands on substances is probably pretty good for your health, right? Writer Brennan Kilbane met Lindsay when she was very much in her Dubai era. And he talked to her about why she liked living there.

[Brennan Kilbane]

One of the things she, she expressed to me, which I thought was interesting, was she likes the kind of distance that it affords her from, from not only the. The American, you know, film and TV industry, but from, you know, her, her family, who she loves and who she loves spending time with. And most of them are in New York, but Dubai gives her a little bit of distance. So she can come to New York and then she can leave, or her family can come visit her in Dubai and then they can go back to New York. And so it really, she's really carved out this, like, this space for herself there. And of course, like a very, a very luxurious space, I assume. I think 2020 and the pandemic, as so many of us kind of approached it as a reset, it feels like Lindsay maybe did as well. She was back in Dubai and that is kind of when she started to step into the Netflix of it all.

[Natalie Robermed]

So that's kind of her comeback as part of this multi picture deal.

[Brennan Kilbane]

Yes, Netflix was going to design these rom coms around her, the first one being Falling for Christmas. Lindsay and I spoke a lot about rom coms and she has a lot of enthusiasm about the genre, really seemed to want to own the rom com and was hoping to use this Netflix 2 picture deal as a kind of way to get back into it.

[Natalie Robermed]

And it perfectly banks on Lindsay's nostalgia, this millennial nostalgia where we're all like, oh, we grew up with her and we just want the best friend. Oh, here she is. And this, this movie just feels like a big hug and a cozy blanket. But when we look at this holy trinity, right, of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, all these infamous pictures of them falling out of cars and that era of tabloid, both Paris and Britney have really had a swing back into public favor, where there's a lot more goodwill towards both of them. I mean, obviously there's the whole free Britney movement. Paris had her documentary. I really feel like they've been able to rebuild their image and be embraced by the public. But I don't know that Lindsay has managed to do that. Like, what do you think about that? And do you agree? And if she hasn't been like, why do you think that is?

[Brennan Kilbane]

I do agree. And yeah, why is it? I wonder if it is because of the distance she's put between her and us, which we deserve, by the way. We are not owed any more Lindsay Lohan as a peoples. But I wonder if by comparison, definitely Paris and I think even Britney still feel a little bit more accessible to us because they're always on social media. We see Paris thriving and we like that. And it's interesting to think about now that Lindsay is in this new chapter of her life, she's a new mother. I'm sure that that has radically changed her worldview and it's going to continue to, but it's almost like she's shown us everything. But has she shown us enough? Do we feel like we know the real Lindsay? Do we feel like she's a real person still in our heads? Like she is a lot more inaccessible to us now?

[Natalie Robermed]

Yeah, she's in Dubai.

[Brennan Kilbane]

Yeah, exactly. She's so far away and. And we don't know what's going on with her. We don't know what's going on with her life. And I think she likes it that way. I think that she is extremely guarded, as she should be. And I wonder if she can continue to be guarded while cultivating her fan base. This episode is brought to you by FX's alien Earth, the official podcast. Each week, host Adam Rogers is joined by guests, including the show's creator, cast and crew. In this exclusive companion podcast, they will.

[Natalie Robermed]

Explore story elements, deep dive into character.

[Brennan Kilbane]

Motivations, and offer an episode by episode behind the scenes breakdown of each terrifying.

[Natalie Robermed]

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[Brennan Kilbane]

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