1986-present

Who Is Lindsay Lohan?

Lindsay Lohan was born in New York City on July 2, 1986. Lohan was a child actress and model before her breakout performance in the Tina Fey-scripted film Mean Girls (2004). That year she also released the pop album Speak, which went platinum. In 2012, Lohan starred as Elizabeth Taylor in the TV movie Liz & Dick. Since becoming a celebrity, Lohan has had problems with drug and alcohol abuse, as well as other controversial antics that have been well documented in the tabloids.

Child Actor and The Parent Trap

Lindsay Dee Lohan was born on July 2, 1986, in New York City. Her father, Michael Lohan, ran his family's pasta business and worked as an investment banker. Her mother, Donata "Dina" Sullivan, was a Wall Street analyst. Lohan grew up in the wealthy Long Island suburbs of Cold Spring Harbor and Merrick.

Stints as a child model and commercial actress brought Lohan into the spotlight at the age of 3. Her impressive résumé, which included more than 60 television spots and 100 print ads for clients like Toys 'R Us and Duncan Hines, helped Lohan land the dual role of twin sisters in Disney's 1998 remake of The Parent Trap. In the film, the sisters—one raised in England and the other in the U.S.—try to reunite their long-divorced parents, played by Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson. The movie performed well at the box office, garnering more than $92 million globally.

Teen Stardom: Mean Girls and Herbie

Lohan's success resulted in more Disney film roles, including the remake of Freaky Friday (2003), co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Her next role with Disney, the pre-teen comedy Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), brought mild success. But it was her starring role in Paramount's Mean Girls, written by comedian Tina Fey, that turned Lohan into a bona fide star. The movie received both popular and critical success; it became the 24th highest grossing movie of 2004 and led to Lohan being honored by the Teen Choice Awards and the MTV Movie Awards.

Lohan returned to Disney in 2005 to star in Herbie: Fully Loaded. The film earned $144 million worldwide and marked the actress's transition to more grown-up roles. In the meantime, Lohan also launched a music career. Thanks to her growing fan base, her first album, Speak, debuted in 2004 and hit platinum status. Her next album, A Little More Personal, hit stores in 2005 but didn't fare as well. Neither did her next two films, Just My Luck and A Prairie Home Companion, both of which generated mild box office sales in 2006.

Struggles and Controversy

As her celebrity status grew, so did Lohan's attendance at New York nightclubs. 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.

On May 26, 2007, Lohan was arrested after crashing her Mercedes-Benz into a tree in Beverly Hills. She was arrested again on July 24 after allegedly engaging in a car chase with the mother of her former personal assistant. In both cases, Lohan was found to be in possession of small amounts of cocaine, below the .05 grams required for felony charges, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney's office. After her legal run-ins, Lohan was only charged with two counts each of driving under the influence and a single count of reckless driving.

However, a passenger in the car Lohan was accused of chasing on July 24 sued the star for assault and negligence. Lohan dodged felony charges when she reached a plea deal on misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges on August 23. She received the minimum sentence of four days in jail and credit for 24 hours already served. The sentence was then knocked down to one day in jail, for performing 10 days of community service at a mortuary and in a hospital emergency room. Ultimately, the actress wound up spending just 84 minutes behind bars later that year.

Her sentence also included mandatory rehab. In August 2007, Lohan checked into the Cirque Lodge Treatment Center in Sundance, Utah, her third stint in rehab that year. After checking out in October, she told OK! Magazine that the experience was "sobering and humbling," and that her two main priorities were to stay sober and out of Los Angeles.

The actress managed to keep a relatively low profile in the aftermath, though she made headlines again the following year after revealing that she was in a long-term same-sex relationship with DJ Samantha Ronson.

TV Appearances and Liz & Dick

In May 2008, Lohan appeared as a guest star on the television sitcom Ugly Betty. She went on to appear in the film Labor Pains, which was released in 2009. Around the same time, she was reportedly working on a new album.

In November 2012, Lohan starred as Elizabeth Taylor in the made-for-TV movie Liz & Dick. Airing on Lifetime, the movie focuses on Taylor's relationship with actor Richard Burton (Grant Bowler). She later made guest appearances on such shows as Anger Management, Eastbound & Down and 2 Broke Girls. In 2014, Lohan took on a new challenge by performing in a London production of the David Mamet play Speed the Plow.

The following spring, Lohan was back in the United States to complete court-ordered community service hours. She volunteered at Brooklyn Community Services and the Ali Forney Center, according to an E! Online report. That summer, Lohan debuted a new fashion mini collection for the British brand Lavish Alice.

Clubs and Beach House

Entering her 30s, Lohan began spending more time at a residence in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. She occasionally surfaced in the news, such as when she revealed via Instagram that she had been bitten by a snake while vacationing in Thailand in late 2017, but otherwise enjoyed remaining out of the limelight.

According to a June 2018 New York Times profile, the actress had opened the Lohan Beach House club in Mykonos, Greece, and had plans for another club in Rhodes. Meanwhile, she had appeared in the British sitcom Sick Note and was developing a script of the novel The Honeymoon with its author, Tina Seskis.

"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," she told the publication. "Because I get to actually focus on the result of things."

The following month, MTV announced the launch of a new reality TV series based on Lohan's life as a club owner in Mykonos, called Lindsay Lohan's Beach House. The network said the star "will lead a team of handpicked brand ambassadors to make her mark on the vacation capital of the world. ... The stakes are high as the team establishes new friendships and alliances while striving to rise above the temptations the Mykonos nightlife scene has to offer."

Shortly afterward, the actress caused a stir with her comments to the U.K.'s The Times about the #MeToo movement. While insisting she was "supportive of women," Lohan said those who go public with their allegations of sexual harassment or abuse are doing it for the attention, adding, "I think by women speaking against all these things, it makes them look weak when they are very strong women."

The Masked Singer Australia and New Music

Although Beach House lasted just one season, Lohan returned to the airwaves as a judge on The Masked Singer Australia in September 2019.

Around that time she debuted her first new music in more than a decade with a video for the track "Xanax," featuring Finnish pop artist Alma. Lohan followed with the release of the single "Back to Me" in early April 2020.


QUICK FACTS

  • Name: Lindsay Lohan
  • Birth date: July 2, 1986
  • Birth State: New York
  • Birth City: New York
  • Astrological Sign: Cancer
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