Why You Rarely Hear About Lindsay Lohan Anymore

Plenty of actors get famous in their youth, appear in a bunch of TV shows and movies, then fade into relative obscurity. A lot of the time, this occurs due to factors totally independent of talent, work ethic, or any of the other metrics upon which a casting director might base a decision. One minute the public loves you, and the next, they don't — so it goes in Hollywood.

But Lindsay Lohan is different. Originally celebrated for her relatability and charm, as showcased in Disney films like The Parent Trap (1998) and Freaky Friday (2003), Lohan then found acclaim in the razor-sharp teen comedy Mean Girls (2004). However, Lohan soon became a cautionary tale. While she appeared to be on track for movie stardom at one point, various problems in her personal life eventually turned Lohan into a toxic commodity. Or at least, that's how the widely-held perception goes.

But popular discourse has changed a little bit since Lohan's "downfall" in the late '00s. The media back then — and not just the celebrity-focused tabloids, even if they were the worst offenders — went pretty rough on a handful of famous young women, particularly Lohan. The public is no longer certain that such treatment was fair or responsible. In that spirit, we're here to investigate why we don't hear much about Lindsay Lohan anymore.

Lindsay Lohan has had some major difficulties with alcohol and drugs over the years. There's no need to get judgmental about that: Every addict is someone's friend, someone's family member, and above all, a human being. But the fact remains that as of 2013, Lohan had been to court-ordered rehab six times, according to CNN. Moreover, Lohan's grand total of intoxicant-related incidents is too long to list.

Now, Lohan hasn't actually gotten in trouble for anything in a good long while. But her spotlight didn't fade simply because she used to enjoy a good time. For one thing, her track record makes her an insurance liability on multi-million dollar movie sets. For another thing, Lohan's chaotic personal life eventually overshadowed her career accomplishments. Most of her heyday projects didn't have much staying power, as it turns out. In the minds of today's media-consuming public, she's known for Mean Girls and The Parent Trap and that's pretty much it. 

There was a period of time when most of her work consisted of self-aware appearances as "herself" on long-running shows like Anger Management and Glee. Ironic self-deprecation might be funny once in a while, but when it's the only trick a performer can still pull off, it becomes depressing.

For the most part, Lindsay Lohan's legal problems are related to her substance abuse issues. Her rap sheet is a little too long to list in full, but basically, Lohan managed to cram the period between 2007 and 2013 full of DUI arrests, lightning-quick stints in jail, probation violations, and one charge of cocaine procession. As a result, she has had to jump through a bunch of procedural hoops and pay a ton of money.

In addition, assuming various allegations against her are true, it appears Lohan is, or has been, a hardcore kleptomaniac. The troubled star has been accused of stealing from parties, a wide variety of friends, a jewelry store or two, the wardrobe departments of her own movies, and from ex-boyfriend Egor Tarabasov. Lohan's new friend Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman better make sure he hides the good palace silverware, otherwise Lohan might drop it in her purse next time he's too busy ordering the assassination of one of his critics to notice.

When we ask, "Why don't we hear as much about famous actor so-and-so anymore?," what we usually mean is, "Why don't they appear in movies or TV shows as much as they used to?" But in the specific case of Lindsay Lohan, we also mean, "Why isn't she still in movies, TV, or on the news all the time?"

Partially, this is because Lohan lives in Dubai now, which makes her a lot less accessible to the American press. It also happens to be the case that during the mid-'00s, celeb-centric media developed a fixation on famous young women who were enthusiastic participants in recreational nightlife activities. This bunch included Lohan, hotel chain heiress Paris Hilton, Lionel Richie's daughter and eventual TV personality Nicole Richie, and, perhaps most notably, Kim Kardashian, who swung her brief phase of arguably unearned notoriety into a media and fashion empire that carries on to this day.

While the Kardashian brand flourished, the media obsession with Hilton, Richie, and Lohan had pretty much run its course by 2010. Partly, that's probably because the public got worn out from hearing about the same celebrities getting in trouble all the time. But maybe after Lohan narrowly avoided felony charges and Hilton wound up doing jail time in 2007, we realized, as a society, that paying attention to this mayhem was just pouring metaphorical gasoline on the fire.

We're not suggesting Lindsay Lohan isn't responsible for her own choices, nor do we want to sound certain that an alternate reality version of Lohan who never did any drugs would've had a more successful run in Hollywood.  But consider this: At one point in his life, Robert Downey Jr. was getting wasted to a degree that Lohan could not conceive of during her most depressing benders ... and Hollywood gave him a second chance. Violent, substance-related accusations have circled Johnny Depp for years, but a whole lot of people are eager to see him exonerated. In fact, if we look from a broader perspective and think about figures like Hunter S. Thompson, Ernest Hemingway, and virtually every male rock musician ever, it appears that heavy drinking and drug use among men is considered less of a liability or a character flaw, and more like an indicator of creative genius. 

But of course, nobody has ever thought Lindsay Lohan's alcoholism and drug addiction is a sign that she's secretly a artistic talent constrained by a square world. Same goes for Courtney Love, Amy Winehouse, Demi Lovato, and a score of others — they're written off as train wrecks. So while we can't blame the disappointments of Lohan's acting career entirely on systemic misogyny, there's surely a shot or two of 100 proof sexism in that causal cocktail. 

Intended as Lindsay Lohan's groundbreaking transition into edgy, adult roles, I Know Who Killed Me (2007) was shredded by critics and largely ignored by moviegoers. As The Guardian recalls, the production had to contort itself around Lohan's court-mandated rehab stints, plus a handful of other Lohan-related obstacles. This included so many paparazzi, some of them lurk in the background of shots that ended up in the finished movie.

Within the first 10 minutes, it becomes immediately obvious that director Chris Sivertson very much wants I Know Who Killed Me to be Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992). But is it really fair to label I Know Who Killed Me as discount David Lynch and toss it aside? Could it be that the world of 2007 was already too sick of hearing about Lindsay Lohan to give the film an honest chance? 

As critic Charles Bramesco writes, "The baggage [Lohan] dropped off at set only served to deepen and enrich the subtext of a stealth noir gem, one that gestures to a long-bygone era of movie stardom through the framework of a cheaper and dirtier sort of serial killer thriller." As of this moment, I Know Who Killed Me is available for free on Crackle, if that sort of thing interests you. Fair warning: Dry ice and sharp objects interact with human flesh and bone in a manner that leans a little NC-17.

Stephen Rodrick's 2013 New York Times Magazine feature, "Here is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie," is a whole lot more memorable than its subject matter, The Canyons (2013). The microbudget brainchild of director Paul Schrader and writer Bret Easton Ellis, The Canyons was met with critical scorn and was not widely viewed. This isn't necessarily surprising, as it's a erotic thriller with a serious mean streak — not exactly mainstream fare. Still, the film's dead-on-arrival status proved that controversy alone cannot always carry a film to profit.

The fact that Lohan, according to Schrader, could not be bothered to promote the film probably didn't help push it in front of anyone's eyeballs. But more importantly, a few years after the movie's release, a deluge of rape and assault allegations ruined the public's ability to comfortably watch Lohan's Canyons co-star James Deen pretend to abuse a woman on screen. Thus, The Canyons is pretty unlikely to ever become an ironic cult favorite along the lines of Lohan's other "serious" movie fiasco, I Know Who Killed Me.

But even before all that fallout hit, as Rodrick's piece chronicles, this production was caught in the ongoing tornado of upheaval that defined Lindsay Lohan's life at the time. It seems reasonable to suggest, in hindsight, that maybe Schrader and Ellis should've known better.

Clearly, Lindsay Lohan's acting career hit its high water mark with Mean Girls. Ever since she played Cady Heron, however, she's drifted further and further away from acting, to the point that it has ceased to be her primary occupation. So, if you wanted to make the case that she's more than a little washed up as an actress, you could credibly do so. But that doesn't mean she's stopped acting completely — or performing in other ways. 

In fact, Lohan appeared in a video-on-demand Underworld-ish movie called Among The Shadows in 2019. She also showed up on season two of Sick Note alongside Rupert Grint and Nick Frost in 2018, and is attached to a Mickey Rourke project called Cursed. Sure, Disney's probably not calling her agent as much these days, but it's not like she's doing nothing. 

As far as Lohan's music career goes, it may surprise you to learn that she's quietly started putting new music out again as of 2020. This ends a long stretch of sonic inactivity, reaching back to the release of her 2005 album, A Little More Personal (Raw). Whether she's on the way back to her platinum-selling heights of yore remains to be seen, but we must admit, the lyric "you're like Xanax to me" is certainly not something that would have appeared in any of Lohan's teen pop tunes from back in the day.  

Even nowadays, when drugs and alcohol have ostensibly been removed from the picture, Lindsay Lohan's career continues to take an unpredictable route. As it turns out, she's perfectly capable of getting involved in all kinds of weird stuff beyond singing, acting, and getting obliterated after dark.

In 2019, Lohan didn't last long as a judge on the Australian version of The Masked Singer. Her MTV reality series Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club only made it through a single season before the featured Mykonos resort — one of Lohan's personal business ventures — ceased operations. However, People reports two other Greek entertainment establishments Lohan co-owns remain open for business. Moreover, she made several million selling the Mykonos location. Maybe Lohan managed to fail upwards for a change? 

While Lohan has had some success as a nightclub entrepreneur, her attempts at humanitarian interventionism have been a far more mixed bag. In 2018, Lohan got into a bizarre altercation in Moscow with a woman she accused of child trafficking. Maybe when it comes to handling the Syrian refugee crisis, Lohan would be better off supporting international organizations staffed by trained professionals, instead of harassing a family she arbitrarily selected off the street in a clueless attempt to look like a hero on Instagram.

Back in the good old days, if you were a celebrity and wanted to make some extra money with a high-profile advertising gig, you had to cross your fingers and hope that a major company would get in touch with you to appear in one of their television or print commercials. Nowadays, things work a little differently. Brands will hire celebrities to push their products on social media, which has got to save quite a bit on marketing costs. Lindsay Lohan's taken that paradigm a step further with the U.K.-based jewelry company Lily Baker Jewels, with which she co-designed a line of accessories. Notably, many of the bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and other objects in the collection draw from ancient and mystical motifs. Other accessories are more understated, though every piece is appropriately sparkly.

It's hard to determine Lohan's genuine level of participation or interest in this venture. Celebs do tend to exaggerate their level of involvement with the products they slap their names on, after all. But Lohan has been heavily promoting the collection on social media, to the point that she seems at least somewhat engaged in the marketing process. As many celebrities do only the cursory amount of touting for these sorts of collaborations, that's worth noting.

Like many of you, we've had Bitcoin and the concept of cryptocurrency explained to us multiple times, and we still have no idea what it is or how it works. But hey, now we know at least one thing about it: It's something Lindsay Lohan is into.

As pointed out by Benzinga, Lohan tweeted "Bitcoin to the moon" in February 2020, and, days later, tweeted "Bitcoin to Mars." As Mars is much further away than the Moon, you can tell she's extra serious about bitcoin. We don't even mean that entirely as a joke — "to the moon" is a real phrase with distinct meaning in the world of cryptocurrency. Lohan also recorded a Cameo video predicting a grand horizon for crypto — but considering the paid-nature of Cameo, perhaps we can take her predictions regarding global financial trends with a grain of salt.

Then again, although Lohan's made a lot of bad decisions in her life, she still appears to be rich. So maybe when she talks about money, we should at least hear her out before writing another snarky internet article about how many drugs she did in the 2000s. 

It's pretty easy to understand how, after the constant mockery and belittlement she endured from the press throughout the late '00s and onwards, Lindsay Lohan would have no idea how to feel or behave upon receiving good press. This seemed to be the case in January 2021, when a 20-year-old fan named Alana contacted Lohan about a proposed Cameo recording. According to Variety, Alana was struggling to come out to her parents. So, in a TikTok video, she floated the idea of hiring the actor to reveal the truth for her.

In a video, Lohan responded to Alana with the following words of wisdom: "You are about to take a very big step in telling your parents who you truly are and what you want them to accept of you — and I think you should do it yourself. I think that coming from you, you'll feel a lot of power and strength. And it's important that you are who you truly are, and that you love yourself and that you can live by that and tell your parents that."  

The clip became a minor viral sensation, and had the world thinking that maybe Lindsay Lohan was more than a vapid fallen celebrity cliché after all. Then, according to Variety, Alana was asked to remove the video from the internet. Perhaps all the positive attention she was suddenly getting made Lohan a bit uncomfortable and confused?