Movies

The Rise and Fall of Lindsay Lohan (and What She’s Doing Now)

When she got her start as a child actress, Lindsay Lohan was universally beloved. But she's had a pretty dramatic fall from grace in the years since. Here's what you need to know about her rise and fall -- plus, what she's doing now.

by Jess Bolluyt

Published on September 29, 2018

4 min read

Everybody used to love Lindsay Lohan — back in the days when she was starring in Parent Trap and even Mean Girls. The New York Times reports that one point, she was even “America’s favorite troubled teen, treated with scorn and sexism.” She’s recently made headlines with unfortunate brushes with the law and a series of stints in rehab.

Ahead, take a look at Lindsay Lohan’s rise and fall — and see what she’s doing now.

Lindsay Lohan got her big break with The Parent Trap

Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap | Disney

Biography reports that Lindsay Lohan was in the spotlight from age three, and her portfolio of 60 television spots and 100 print ads helped land her the dual role of twin sisters in Disney’s 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, the role that everybody knows and loves.

The success of that movie landed Lohan roles in more Disney films, including 2003’s Freaky Friday and 2004’s Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, and then a starring role in Paramount’s Mean Girls. She returned to Disney in 2005 to star in Herbie: Fully Loaded, and then she launched her music career.

Tabloids started following Lohan’s lifestyle

As her celebrity status grew, Lindsay Lohan started spending more time at New York nightclubs, and “her lifestyle became the subject of tabloid fodder, with issues ranging from her father’s prison scandals to rumors of her own struggles with bulimia.”

In 2007, she was arrested twice, and both times was found to be in possession of small amounts of cocaine, but each time was only charged with two counts of driving under the influence and a single count of reckless driving. The same year, she spent three stints in rehab. CNN reports that between 2007 and 2012, Lohan’s “struggle with drugs and alcohol sent her to five rehab facilities for a total of 250 days.”

As Fox News reports, Lohan has become infamous for her brushes with the law, “some of which have landed her in rehab. In 2010, she spent 13 days in jail after violating probation and missing seven alcohol education classes. She also attended court-ordered rehab from October 22, 2010, to January 3, 2011. The star told People in December 2016 she was attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in order to stay clean.” She said at the time, “I was going out too much, and I knew that, and I have more to live for than that.”

She made several TV appearances

Biography reports that in 2008, Lindsay Lohan appeared as a guest star on Ugly Betty. However, as Fox News reports, a planned six-episode appearance was cut short after Lohan argued with the show’s star, America Ferrera, on set. A source said that Lohan “would obsessively cut pictures of herself out of the tabloids like she was creating some sort of scrapbook and refused to go on set until America was there — it was a power play.”

In 2009, she appeared in the film Labor Pains, and in 2012 she starred as Elizabeth Taylor in the made-for-TV movie Liz & Dick. In 2014, she performed in a London production of the play, Speed the Plow.

Lohan began spending time in Dubai and Mykonos

Biography reports that when she entered her 30s, Lindsay Lohan started spending more time at her home in Dubai, and mostly stayed out of the spotlight. In 2018, she revealed to The New York Times that she had opened a Lohan Beach House club in Mykonos and had plans for another club in Rhodes. She also appeared on the British sitcom Sick Note and began developing a script of the novel The Honeymoon with its author, Tina Seskis.

The Times reported, “She also has a lawyer.com sponsorship, plans for a Vanderpump Rules-style reality show for MTV centered around the club, and a general outlook that, at this point, if Ms. Lohan can believe it, she can achieve it.” Lohan told the Times, “There’s a business side to my life now, but I’m not in America, so no one knows about it, which is nice for me. Because I get to actually focus on the result of things.”

She says she’s a ‘normal, nice person’

The New York Times also reported that “if there’s one thing Ms. Lohan wants the public to know about her personal life, it’s that there’s almost nothing that she wants them to know.” She said that she wants people to know that “I’m a normal, nice person. A good person. I don’t have any bad intentions. And my past has to stay in the past.”

Lohan continued, “People have to just let go of it and stop bringing it up because it’s not — it’s gone. It’s dead. And that’s the most important thing to me.” She says that despite the decades of tabloid coverage, the public has never known the real Lindsay Lohan at all.

However, it’s possible that not everybody would like the real Lindsay Lohan. Fox News reports that Lohan slammed female “attention-seekers” for sharing their “Me Too” stories years after the incidents took place. She also defended Harvey Weinstein late in 2017, saying, “He’s never harmed me or did anything to me — we’ve done several movies together. I think everyone needs to stop — I think it’s wrong.”

Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook!