She was a child prodigy with a bright Hollywood future, but her drink and drug addictions have overshadowed her talent, and her conviction for probation violation is another low for this fast-falling star, writes BRIAN BOYD
YOU ALMOST felt sorry for the Queen of the Smaws, Lindsay Lohan, last Tuesday as you were strangely transfixed by the live stream of her Los Angeles court case on the celeb gossip website TMZ. The 24-year-old Smaw – singer, model, actress, whatever – looked pale and drawn as she pleaded with the judge for leniency on charges brought against her for violating the terms of her probation. She was less than a minute into her big mea-culpa speech when the tears started to run down her still remarkably pretty face.
You were really feeling for her as she sobbed that she was trying her very, very best to overcome her drink and drug addiction issues; that she was doing all she could to conform to the rigid terms of her probation agreement. And then you noticed it. Press pause, rewind, get the zoom thing working. Oh my God (as Lindsay would have it herself): what was that she had written on her fingernail? You squinted and peered myopically until you could make it out. The hand she was resting on her cheek – which was pointing directly in the direction of Judge Revel – had the words “F**k U” painted on the middle fingernail. What a petulant brat-pack cow. Lock her up and throw away the key.
On hearing that she was being sentenced to 90 days in jail and then a further 90 days in a rehab facility, poor Lohan dissolved into a you-only-hate-me-because-I’m-pretty-style tear-fest. Immediately after the trial – she has until July 20th to surrender herself to the court – she did what any 24-year-old in a crisis would do: she took to her Twitter account like the woman scorned that she was.
On @lindsaylohan (read it – it's brilliant) she was celebri-babbling about "cruel and inhuman" punishment; she quoted from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and from an article on "perverted" federal sentencing guidelines. If that wasn't drama queeny enough, she then linked to a Newsweekstory about an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.
But our fun with Lindsay hadn’t finished. The next day – Wednesday – those intrepid types at TMZ (the same people who were the first to break the news of Michael Jackson’s death last year) had got a hold of one of her probation reports (she’s been on probation since a series of driving-under-the-influence, or DUI, offences three years ago). Our gaze got momentarily distracted from her increasingly demented tweets as the document was duly scrutinised.
As part of her probation she is regularly tested for drugs, but this particular leaked document showed that a few months ago she tested positive for Zoloft (an antidepressant), Trazodone (ditto), Adderall (to treat attention-deficit disorder), Nexium (boring – that’s just for acid reflux) and Dilaudid.
If you’re in any way familiar with the recreational drug use of the Smaw brigade, you’ll know to shout “Stop the lights” when Dilaudid gets a mention. This extremely strong narcotic is the drug that heroin doffs its cap to – before beating a hasty retreat. A synthetic form of morphine, Dilaudid is allegedly the drug that Michael Jackson was abusing in the weeks before his death. Extremely addictive and potentially fatal if mixed with other prescription drugs, it really does send a shiver through you that a 24-year-old girl has been prescribed it.
LOHAN DIDN’T violate the terms of her probation by taking this cocktail of drugs, as they are medically prescribed for her, but the leaked probation report carries an alleged quote by her probation office: “The defendant indicates she has been on the same prescription medication for as long as she can remember.” The Bacardi Breezers – her tipple of choice – may have got her into this mess in the first place when she was done for drunk driving, but alcohol, for once, is not the problem here.
In place of a biography, her life has been like Valley of the Dollsremade as a tacky soap opera. When she should have been celebrating her 21st birthday she instead was releasing a statement through her management team: "My life has become unmanageable due to my addiction to drugs and drink." She called a room at the notorious Chateau Marmont hotel home for two years. (While the Marmont is a magnificent place, it is also indelibly associated with celebrity overdoses, most notably that of John Belushi.)
For the past five years her press clippings have read like something Drew Barrymore and Robert Downey jnr would redden at: done for DUI, enforced stays in rehab, hospitalised for “dehydration”, numerous late arrivals for and absences from film sets, being dropped from the promotional campaign for a Walt Disney film for “un-Disney like behaviour” (goodness, how low can you go?), replaced at the last moment from potential breakthrough films for “insurance reasons”. Once, in a rare breach of time-honoured Hollywood protocol, a studio executive publicly labelled her “irresponsible and unprofessional”.
Her parents? Funny you should ask. Father Michael Lohan, originally from Co Galway – that’s where Lindsay’s red hair and freckles come from – was last heard of when he was photographed passed out drunk in a strip club and then being charged with beating up a dustbin man. He has also served four years in prison for securities fraud. Mother Dina Lohan was once reprimanded by the staff of a drug-rehabilitation facility for bringing along cameramen from a trashy celebrity “news” TV programme to film her daughter’s treatment.
RAISED IN Long Island, New York, Lohan was a child prodigy. She was signed up by the Ford talent agency when she was just three, and she appeared as a child model in many high-profile television advertisement campaigns, most notably Toys "R" Us. Aged 10 she was a child star thanks to her part in the soap opera Another World; by the time she became a teenager a great Hollywood future in the Jodie Foster mould was being confidently predicted.
It was to be a three-pronged attack: as a singer, model and actress. She has negligible talent in the first category (her albums make Paris Hilton sound like PJ Harvey); as a model she would have done very well with her fresh Irish looks, but she wanted something more "meaningful", so she concentrated on her acting. By common consensus she is a very talented actress who could do really great things if she got herself clean 'n' serene. She was lauded from on high for her performance in 2003's Freaky Friday, and the great Robert Altman – hardly one to be enamoured of bratty young starlets – sought her out for his A Prairie Home Companion. And she could more than hold her own in the independent film sector as well.
In a previous Hollywood generation her lifestyle wouldn’t have been so forensically reported, and the press pack would have gone with epithets such as “high-spirited” and “very sociable”. But, coming of age in the internet era, where all previous filters have been discarded and there’s an unhealthy lasciviousness to celebrity culture reportage, she comes up with the drink-drugs-court-prison goods – with a few bonuses thrown in, such as her tempestuous lesbian relationship with the DJ Samantha Ronson. Lohan identifies herself as bisexual.
The rare bit of good news for her is that, because of chronic overcrowding in Californian jails, she's likely to serve only around a quarter of her 90-day sentence. But she has already put in doubt her next big acting job: playing the porn actress Linda Deep ThroatLovelace in a biopic. And even if the producers wait for her, there'll be the indignity of frequent urine tests on set to see if she's using again.
But, as the examples of Robert Downey jnr and Mickey Rourke show, there is a way back. Hollywood loves nothing better than a reformed sinner – especially the really refractory ones with cute freckled faces.
CV Lindsay Lohan
NameIn 10 days' time she won't have one. She'll have a number instead.
Headline newsShe's just been banged up for 90 days for not showing up at her mandatory weekly alcohol-education classes.
No roleEven nice guy Barack Obama has deserted her. Lohan was a vocal supporter of his presidential campaign, but when she got in touch to suggest that she could host pro-Obama rallies aimed at younger voters, her offer was politely refused.
Nailing ItShe says that her "F**k U" nail tattoo was just a joke between friends and not intended as a slight to the judge in her case.
