Lindsay Lohan on 'confusing' teen fame after 'Mean Girls': 'I should have listened to my mom and dad'

Lindsay Lohan is reflecting on the "double-edged sword" that is fame.

Lindsay faced extreme visibility following the success of Mean Girls in 2004. The actress was only 17 when she shot the film.

The attention "was all so overwhelming and consuming," she noted in an interview with Vogue Arabia.

"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," she said.

The Parent Trap star moved to Dubai to get away from the spotlight of Los Angeles in 2014.

"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," she remarked.

"I wasn’t having fun in the business anymore. 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," she said of her years away from Hollywood, during which she met and married her husband Bader Shammas.

The Freaky Friday star made a return to filmmaking with romcoms like Falling for Christmas, Irish Wish and Our Little Secret.

But now, she likes to take part in the production side of the films from the beginning. She was an executive producer on Freakier Friday, which came out in 2025.

"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," she said.

Lindsay Loohan will next appear in the Hulu show Count My Lies, which is based on the novel by Sophie Stava.