Lindsay Lohan Wishes Social Media Existed Earlier In Her Career
Anyone who’s been a celebrity gossip connoisseur since the early aughts is familiar with the conflagrant wreck that was Lindsay Lohan. Whether it was beefing with Brandon “Lindsay Lohan is a Fire Crotch” Davis and Paris Hilton or quarreling with her “friend” Samantha Ronson, Lindsay was always reliably stationed at the corner of “Hot Mess” and “Not This Shit Again.” Despite that, Lindsay said during her interview for the cover of Cosmopolitan that she wishes social media was around back in the earlier parts of her career so that she could have better controlled her own narrative. And the whole internet collectively sighed, “ohhhh, honey.” She also touched on all of her recent work and her unlikely friendship with Al Pacino.
Cosmo’s Madeleine Frank Reeves spent eight hours with Lindsay and her entire glam and PR team as Lindsay got ready to attend the premiere of her Netflix movie, Falling For Christmas. Lindsay is newly married to Bader Shammas and living a private life in Dubai, has a couple more Netflix movies lined up, and has a podcast called The Lohdown coming out; so it looks like her current life may be less in shambles with a comeback on the horizon.
Lindsay is right here in front of me in the iconically freckled flesh. She’s come all the way from her home in Dubai to shoot a cover story that’s a very big deal for obvious reasons. Getting the famously private star—so private that she moved to Dubai because paparazzi are illegal there—to sit down for a candid interview has been a feat nearly a year in the making.
I could’ve lived without the phrase “freckled flesh,” honestly. Lindsay started by talking about social media in a way that you wouldn’t expect from someone whose entire young adulthood was under a microscope. Even though I would have died had my Thursday evening skanktivities been broadcast across Instagram and Twitter; Lindsay said that she’s jealous of today’s young stars having access to it because they get to craft their own image.
…Now I feel like…when I first started out in the business, none of us had a say in how to control our own narrative. There were paparazzi pictures, and then people ran with it. So I think it’s really good that in this day and age, people can say who they are and who they want to be. And I admire and appreciate that. I’m a little jealous because I didn’t have that. But I think it moves really fast and I just try to keep up as best I can. And I check everything before I post it. I’ll send it to people. Because you have to.
How optimistic. And even though we all know that social media is the Wild West of trolls, Lindsay says you’ve just got to ignore the haters.
You have to take everything people say with a grain of salt and just be you. And slow down, because everyone’s so quick right now. People just don’t stop. You’ve got to chill.
“Challenge accepted, I will not be ignored,” muttered Chrissy Teigen. Lindsay says she’s excited about all of the work she has on her plate, and although she’s super busy, it feels good. She also touched on the Falling For Christmas behind-the-scenes work she was responsible for as an executive producer.
I’m really excited. It’s fun to be back in New York and doing shoots. And I love this part of the process. After you’ve filmed, this is the fun part. So I feel really great and just really excited and happy.
[Executive producing is] a really different role that I get to play aside from just starring in the movie. It’s being involved in the projects at every step: the whole casting process, the editing and production process. And even parts of the script.
SNL has been a dumpster fire lately, but she says that hosting it years ago was one of her career highlights and she hopes to do it again, but even better next time.
The first time I hosted Saturday Night Live. That was a big moment for me. And then when I hosted the MTV Movie Awards, those were both really big moments for me. But I think when you’re in it, it doesn’t hit you. And I never thought I would say this, but as you get older in life,4 you look back on those things and you’re like, Did I really do that? Oh my gosh, I really did all that stuff, which is a really cool feeling in the end. And I’m the kind of person that now wants to do it again but ten times better.
And when Lindsay isn’t working, she lives a very tame life that Nana Lohan would support.
I cook a lot. I follow this @EatingHealthyToday Instagram and they do these really great healthy meals. I cook a lot of Italian. I do a lot of pastas. I do a lot of an Arabic dish called machboos. It’s chicken with rice and vegetables. I do a really good borscht soup. I also go to bed really early. 9:30.
Although this interview was delightfully boring, Lindsay did share the intriguing tidbit that she’s pals with the more-famous-than-her Al Pacino, whom she met in 2014 while she was acting in the play, Speed-The-Plow.
I actually have asked him for a lot of advice for a lot of things, especially work-wise and just life-wise, just because he’s a great person to talk to. He always says, “Focus on your craft when it comes to your work.” And I think that’s really important. Don’t let other outside things blur your vision.
Recently, I was at a restaurant in San Francisco with my husband and his family, and all of a sudden, this waiter was bringing our food to a different table, or I thought he was.…I was like, “Oh no, he’s taking that to the other table,” and then I realized he was blocking a paparazzi flash. And so when he came by, I go, “Oh, thank you so much for doing that.” And he goes, “Oh. No, I wasn’t blocking it for you. Al Pacino’s here.”
Womp Womppp. Here’s more content from Lindsay’s Cosmo profile:
Good for Lindsay for seemingly evolving into the proper amount of chill and uninteresting. With parents like Dina and Michael Lohan, it wouldn’t be a shock if she were pulling a modern-day Madonna, but it looks like she’s finally grown into a mature adult that Britney Spears would be allowed to hang out with now without getting the shit slapped out of her by Lynne Spears.
Pic: Cosmopolitan