Lindsay Lohan is reflecting on the psychological toll of young stardom.
The Freakier Friday star contemplated the media frenzy that followed her at the peak of her fame in the 2000s in a new interview published Saturday.
“I don’t ever want my family to experience being chased by the paparazzi the way I was,” Lohan told the UK outlet The Times. “They were terrifying moments I had in my life — I have PTSD to the extreme from those things. The most invasive situations. Really scary. And I pray stuff like that never comes back. It’s not safe. It’s not fair.”
The actress added that she thinks the paparazzi’s boundary-crossing obsession with celebrities has faded over the past two decades. “I feel that it doesn’t happen as badly now as it did,” Lohan said. “It was way worse when I was younger.”
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Lohan is grateful for the advent of social media, which she told The Times has allowed celebrities to take more control of their narratives. “Now, because of social media, people can tell their own story in the way that you want it to be told,” she said. “It has reclaimed the ownership of your life.”
She continued, “We didn’t have that and so, no, I don’t think anybody chose that life, but what I have learnt over time is how to separate my private life and public life, and that was difficult for me because nobody ever teaches you how to do that.”
The Herbie Fully Loaded star admitted that she’s almost oblivious to constant attention from passersby. “A lot of the time someone who is with me will notice someone filming. I think I’ve lived with it for so long it doesn’t matter,” she said. “But then, now, somebody will have a phone up all the time.”
She added, “That’s scary. That feels very uncomfortable. I’d rather someone just ask if they can take a photo or else you get cautious of every move you make.”
Lohan also revealed what advice she would give to her younger self. “I would say, ‘Slow down,'” she said. “Everybody back then was, ‘Go! Go! Go!’ I wish somebody could have been behind me saying, ‘You’re all right. You can slow down, kid.'”
The actress, who is now the mother of a 2-year-old son, told Entertainment Weekly in its recent Freakier Friday cover story that family remains her top priority when she chooses projects. “Everything I do is [about] what’s going to work for my family,” Lohan explained. “If something works around that, it’s meant to happen. If it doesn’t work around that, it’s a no-go.”
Lohan’s focus on family made playing young star Julia Butters’ fictional mother in Freakier Friday all the more meaningful. “I’ve never played a mom before on screen, so it’s special to me,” she told EW. “I played one in Labor Pains for a second at the very end, but you didn’t see it.”
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Lohan also explained that when it came time to film the sequel, her maternal experience helped provide perspective she lacked while shooting 2003’s Freaky Friday as a teenager.
“The closeness that you have with your child, and that bond — how irreplaceable that is, and wanting to do the right thing for your child — is always the most important thing in the world, and nothing can stand in the way of that,” the actress said. “I also didn’t have the calmness that a mother needs to have when a child is losing it.”
Freakier Friday hits theaters Aug. 8.
