The Hollywood community has united for 9/11, Haiti, cancer, now the MPTF. It’s time they did so for Lindsay Lohan, too.
Self-destructiveness is as much a part of the entertainment industry as breast implants. If you’ve been in the business long enough, you’ve been stuck working with some troubled creative talent: those with addictions, emotional immaturity, mental illness. Sociopaths and psychopaths. People who hold up production, blow the budget, vanish, intentionally create discord and chaos. They make our jobs 10 times tougher. As much as we might feel sorry for them, we mainly wish that they aren’t attached to any other project of ours ever again.
But in Hollywood, these wishes rarely come true. The industry famously overlooks self-destructiveness and the havoc it wreaks if someone can create entertainment magic. Instead, the business is often willing to do whatever it takes to keep a self-destructive talent afloat. That is, until everyone’s got their money’s worth out of him.
John Belushi biographies claim his professional inner circle fed his raging drug habit so he could fulfill "SNL" and film commitments. Enablers helped destroy Judy Garland, Michael Jackson, Chris Farley, Marilyn Monroe (Lohan’s own icon of choice). That video of stoned, face-painted, incoherent Anna Nicole Smith is still haunting every time you see it.
But in my 25-year career, I don’t recall any talent who’s spiraled out of control so hard, so fast, so often and so long without anyone throwing her a lifeline as Lohan.
On Thursday, May 20, a furious L.A. judge issued a bench warrant for Lohan’s arrest after she failed to appear for a probation progress report hearing. This is related to the actress’s 2007 DUI conviction, not to be confused with the ongoing L.A. civil suit brought by three people claiming to have been held hostage by Lohan when she hijacked a car for a wild, drunken ride.
According to the judge, Lohan defiantly did not complete the minimum alcohol-education courses required to comply with the terms of her probation. Bail was set at $100,000 and U.S. Customs was considering exercising its right to take her into custody when she finally returned from Cannes, where she disappeared earlier this week after a few days’ bar-hopping in New York. Lohan has claimed her purpose at the film festival is to raise funding for a project, although wire service photos have only shown her heading in and out of parties, dead-eyed, in her now-ubiquitous thigh-high hooker stockings. And still falling on the ground.
While Lohan apparently saw the inside of many Cannes yachts, she won’t be seeing an arresting officer when – or if – she returns. Her LA reps secured the bail bond and the warrant was recalled. But she’s due back in court on Monday morning and if the judge determines the terms of the probation were violated, Lohan could serve up to 180 days in jail.
Lindsay Lohan will be 24 years old on July 2.
And she’s now a punchline. Much of it is her own fault. Yet also to blame are the vultures who have enjoyed all the money and second-hand celebrity she can give them without helping her in return: her representatives, business partners, the entertainment media, friends and, most of all, her parents.
Michael and Dina Lohan make the White House-crashing Salahis almost palatable. Dina seems to treat Lohan like a walking VIP pass into the hottest clubs and an entrée for her own TV aspirations. The best example of her judgment? She’s on video partying at the Chateau Marmont with her daughter in the early morning hours before the civil suit’s third attempted deposition of Lindsay – who’d blown off the previous two.
Michael has equally milked his daughter’s name for his own publicity opportunities. And when media exposure of his romantic problems, celebrity boxing matches and TV show ideas ebbs, he tends to express anguished concern about Lohan’s well-being … but seemingly only to the TV crews and tabloids. His latest brainstorm – that his daughter go through rehab in a Long Island bar mitzvah venue – would be hilarious if it weren’t about a young woman’s survival.
Lohan’s current attorney should win an Oscar for keeping a straight face during this week’s legal drama. And it’s hard to believe that any agents, managers and publicists still in Lohan’s employ have a sense of responsibility or even human decency.
This week, Lohan reached her Bald Britney Moment: that point when the screw-ups get scary. During that period for Spears, there was a subtle yet discernible shift in public and media tone. The tabloids started taking a more careful, at times paternal approach. Craig Ferguson, a recovering addict himself, announced he would no longer joke about her in his monologues; if you paid close attention, others more subtly did likewise. It’s almost like everyone developed a conscience.
And that’s what needs to happen now.
A question’s been nagging at me all week: Isn’t there one person in the entertainment industry who gives a damn about Lindsay Lohan?
Drew Barrymore’s talked about how Steven Spielberg was a steady hand for her during her own addiction problems. We may criticize Mel Gibson – I’ve done my share – but he and his then-wife deserve credit for welcoming Spears to their island getaway for some much-needed R&R.
As a publicist, I draft strategies for a living. Here’s my plan for Lohan:
To the studios and producers, and the fashion houses and cosmetics companies who’ve tried to capitalize off her name: Cut off the work and the income.
To those doctors, shrinks and other self-anointed experts who’ve been scoring TV exposure to dish about her problems: Shut up.
To her agents, managers, publicists and other advisers: You’re being paid to nurture her career. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s derailed. Get a spine and do what you claim to do so well.
To her parents: Back off. And grow up.
Finally, to anyone of substance and maturity in the industry who befriended Lohan on a set, cares at all about Hollywood’s next generation or just went through the childhood stardom yourself and lived to tell: Please step up.
It’s not how much money you make or fame you attain, but what good you do for others that will ultimately be most remembered about you.
I wonder what Jamie Spears’ schedule looks like these days.