Lindsay Lohan covers the latest issue of Allure. She’s pregnant right now, and my guess is that she was about five months pregnant when she posed for Allure’s editorial. The baby-daddy is Lindsay’s now-husband Bader Shammas. They met in Dubai, where Lindsay has lived for the past eight years. I didn’t realize it had been that long until I read this Allure piece. They bring up the fact that Lindsay first tried living in London permanently, but then that fell apart, then she was living in Greece, where she somehow convinced MTV to give her a reality show about running a nightclub (the nightclub is long gone, it was just another Lohan scam). For what it’s worth, Dubai does seem to agree with her and she seems very settled and happy. I can still see some glimpses of the old agent of chaos in there, but the Allure interviewer didn’t press her or even ask Lindsay about her many tabloid dramas, so all you can really see is the whitewash. Some highlights:
She gets advice from working moms: “I spoke to Jamie Lee Curtis recently and she was like, ‘You just bring the baby with you and everything will be fine.’” Curtis and Lohan are in discussions about a sequel to 2003’s Freaky Friday, Lohan’s highest-grossing film.
She’s lived in Dubai for the past eight years: The largest of the United Arab Emirates by population, Dubai can be a wonderful place to live if you are internationally famous, lavishly financed, and able to tolerate the infernal climate. Its formidable privacy laws render the paparazzi illegal. (It can be a much less wonderful place to live if you happen to belong to many other demographic groups.) “I guess you would say it happened organically,” Lohan says of her move to Dubai.
Moving from LA to London and then Greece: She was in Mykonos, being the proprietor of a beachside club and the star of a reality TV show about the proprietorship of a beachside club. “I had always been going to clubs when I was younger, and I was past that point. But I was like, ‘Well, why can’t we make one?’ I mean, what’s better than that?”
Her home in Dubai: She lives west of downtown’s glass spires, in a villa by the beach. Every morning brings tea, yogurt, a smoothie, and a workout. “Sometimes, I call it The Truman Show, because it’s the same thing every day. But I love it. I really love structure because I don’t think I had that when I was young. Everything was coming so fast and I had so many things happening. My only structure was filming and being on set.”
She wants to produce more romantic comedies. “I know that arena so well. I’ve dreamed of working with Scorsese and del Toro, but I’m not going to try and exec-produce their movies. I’m not going to be like, ‘Oh, I want to do a Marvel.’”
Her future endeavors: “Do I want to build my own brand? Do I want to relaunch a new production company? All of these kinds of things I can take time to think about.” Dubai, she says, “gives me that space to have my own vision of what I need to do next.”
She still visits New York: “In New York, I’m walking on the street and I hear the sound of a click, and I think, Was that paparazzi? To never have to worry about that in a place where I live is a startling feeling, in a way.”
How she met her husband Bader Shammas: They met at a Dubai restaurant on a Monday night — she was with friends, he was with colleagues. They chatted briefly. “I said, ‘You look like someone I know.’ He was like, ‘No, I don’t, who?’” The two spoke for hours that night. “And then I said to him, ‘I feel like you’re the person I’m going to be with forever.’ I’d never been able to talk to someone like this.”
She knew she was pregnant in December 2022: She was with her mother the day she was to return to Dubai when she noticed something was different. She told her mom, “I think I might be pregnant.” In Dubai, she took a test, and the positive result appeared almost instantly. She walked into the next room and announced the news to her husband. “It was so unexciting,” she remembers, relaying the anecdote through giggles. “I walked into the room, I threw the test down. I was like, ‘Guess what?’ He goes, ‘We are?’” They were, about five and a half weeks.
She can’t wait to be a mom: “I can’t wait to see what the feeling is and what it’s like to just be a mom,” Lohan says over Zoom. She has always felt maternal, especially toward her siblings, of which she is the eldest. But she knows, in ways unknowable, that what lies ahead is unlike any feeling she has experienced. She’s been crying lately, moved to tears by simple gestures, or a baby shower. “Happy tears. That’s just who I am. Though now, it’s probably baby emotion. It’s overwhelming, in a good way.”
“I said, ‘You look like someone I know.’” What a line, Lindsay! What a pick-up artist. I’m sure that worked on a lot of guys though, especially when it’s Lindsay. Especially when it’s followed up by “I feel like you’re the person I’m going to be with forever.” Men fall for pick-up lines too. I still halfway believe this is some kind of Ocean’s 11 long-con by Lindsay, but she’s managed to keep her cover for a while. As always, with Lindsay, you just have to take a longer view. To be fair, I do think she’s gotten her sh-t together in some big ways. But I do wonder…
Cover & IG courtesy of Allure.
I haven’t thought about her in years. Who has been “lavishly financing” her in Dubai? I didn’t think she had any real money.
Lindsay was still getting paid for all that work she’d done as a child & teen actress, I never once thought she was broke.
Sure, not broke – but not villa on the beaches of Dubai rich. She was in debt 10 years ago and has been making some money since, but the estimates I’ve seen say she’s worth about $1.5 million. I’m only wondering because the article brought up the words “lavishly financed.”
Dubai is a place where Caucasian women can make an awful lot of money “seeing” and “entertaining” oil moguls and their adjacents.
I’m glad Lindsay has found a way out of a certain type of lifestyle and into marriage and motherhood. She still sounds vulnerable. Recovery is journey.
She seems happy and healthy, that’s all anyone can really ask. I’m not going to be cynical about it because she’s managed to stay away from much of the spotlight when she moved away from LA, which was the best. I’m proud of how far she’s come.
I hope for sake and for her little family’s that she has in fact learned from her mistakes. She really has been a con woman all her life and has never taken responsibility for her bullshit. Not as diabolical as Liz Holmes but still a liar.
Wait, how so? Genuinely curious! The most I recall is her being made of fun by Paris Hilton & her crew. Oh and the drugs and arrest in 2007.
She walked out of a jewelry store without paying for pieces. And “lost” some pieces that were lent for a photo shoot. There’s more….Google will tell you the rest.
I hope she’s doing ok these days. And, after the awfully sad experience of receiving such terrible parenting, I hope she’ll be good and loving mom.
It definitely has re-branding vibes but honestly if she’s truly turned her life around then I can be happy for her.
I watched Freaky Friday on the way home from England…though the stereotype of the Asian women stung a little, overall the movie held up and I had a few out loud guffaws even though that was at least the 3rd, maybe 4th time I’ve seen the movie. Jamie Lee Curtis was the best part of the movie. She was hilarious as the teenager in a woman’s body, even though a little overdone at times. Still, helped me pass a couple of hours on a long flight when I knew my attention span wasn’t going to be 100%.
Disney announced last month they’re making a sequel with both of them too!
I’m sure between the residuals or royalties she still gets and whatever wealth her husband has – she’s living well in the UAE. I also wonder if she’s just kind of surrendered to whatever handlers she has all in a big plan for a ‘long game’ to come back to Hollywood and making films on her own terms and to make a comeback. Doing the streaming movies and shows would be a smart way to go for her. She won’t have the traditional box office draw that only mega stars or marvel movies have today.
For some reason the algorithm that is Youtube brought up her interview with David Letterman the other night, where he grilled her about going to rehab. I remember watching that when it happened and feeling it was very unfair towards her. I watched it again and it just felt gross.