After transitioning to the role of wife and mother and, in recent years, making a smashing Hollywood comeback, Lindsay Lohan is opening up about the crushing challenges she faced growing up in the limelight in the ’90s and early ’00s.

In a new Thursday cover story for Vogue Arabia, the now 39-year-old actor pondered why she wasn’t better protected from the “overwhelming and consuming” scrutiny of Hollywood.

“I should have listened to my mom and dad and moved back to New York. But I was young and wanted to be in LA. And I didn’t know. So yeah, while a lot of it was fun, it was hard when I was young. It was a double-edged sword,” Lohan said.

“Now I look back and wonder, ‘Why didn’t anyone just go and take me out of there, protect me more?’ You don’t know how to do that yourself when you’re a teenager.”

Lohan rose to stardom after her breakout role in 1998’s “The Parent Trap,” when she was just 11 years old, and in 2003, her fame skyrocketed after starring in “Freaky Friday” opposite Jamie Lee Curtis. Her career continued ascending with 2004’s “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen” and 2004’s “Mean Girls,” which was released shortly after.

Still a teen, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue her career and even briefly lived with fellow Disney star Raven-Symoné. After much success on the big screen, Lohan’s image in the public eye took a turn after she was incessantly targeted by ruthless tabloids and suffered legal trouble, including getting arrested twice in 2007 for driving under the influence just months after entering rehab in January 2007.

Lohan, who later married husband Bader Shammas in 2022 after moving to Dubai in 2014, said she uprooted her life to live in the United Arab Emirates after realizing she “wasn’t having fun in the business anymore.”

“I wasn’t finding roles I loved,” she said regarding her choice to move. “It’s not a life I wanted to live, you know? It’s not a real life. It pushed me so far away that I moved to the other side of the world. And I’m so glad I followed my gut.”

Shammas and Lohan welcomed their son, Luai, in July 2023.

Since re-emerging into the spotlight, Lohan has starred in a string of Netflix rom-coms, including 2022’s “Falling for Christmas,” 2024’s “Irish Wish” and 2024’s “Our Little Secret.” She also found massive success when she reunited with Curtis for the “Freaky Friday” sequel, “Freakier Friday,” which was released last year and grossed more than $153 million worldwide.

Lohan told Vogue Arabia that living in Dubai has been “very grounding” for her, adding, “I get to just spend time with my family. The city gives me a sense of being with what’s most important.”

She called the privacy she has in the city versus the states “a big breath of fresh air.”

Later in the interview, Lohan got candid about how aging in her career has given her a “different kind of confidence.”

“When I was younger, I wasn’t so comfortable saying how I felt about a character and being involved with the process of it,” she explained. “And I love that part now. I always felt like I had too many people around me and that I was being guided in a different direction. And now it feels good to steer my own ship.”

Read Lohan’s full Vogue Arabia cover story here.

By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.