Lindsay Lohan Says She Felt Unprotected as She Looks Back at Growing Up in Spotlight

Lindsay Lohan is looking back at her difficult experience of growing up in the spotlight.

In her cover story for the new issue of Vogue Arabia, the 39-year-old actress said that the public attention she faced following the release of Mean Girls in 2004, when she was 17, “was all so overwhelming and consuming” and she now wishes more people protected her.

Keep reading to find out more…“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,” Lindsay admitted. “So yeah, while a lot of it was fun, it was hard when I was young. It was a double-edged sword. 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.”

Following her trouble years living in Los Angeles and under constant public scrutiny, Lindsay moved to the Dubai in 2014 for a much quieter life out of the spotlight and only appeared in a handful of roles in the late 2010s.

After moving to the United Emirates, Lindsay began dating Kuwait financier Bader Shammas in 2020 before getting engaged in 2021, marrying in 2022, and welcoming son Luai in July 2023.

“I wasn’t having fun in the business anymore,” Lindsay recalled. “I wasn’t finding roles I loved. 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.”

In recent years, Lindsay has slowly started booking more roles, including 2022′s Falling for Christmas, 2024′s Our Little Secret, and 2025′s Freakier Friday. Along with starring in those movies, Lindsay also served as an executive producer.

She said that she is now more interested in working her movies’ production from start to finish.

“With age comes a different kind of confidence,” Lindsay explained. “When I was younger, I wasn’t so comfortable saying how I felt about a character and being involved with the process of it. 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.”

Next up, Lindsay will be starring alongside Shailene Woodley and Kit Harington in the upcoming Hulu limited series Count My Lies.

If you didn’t see, Hilary Duff looked back at her feud with Lindsay and confirmed a long-speculated fan rumor.