Lindsay Lohan has opened up about the overwhelming challenges of child stardom she faced earlier in her career.
The Freakier Friday actress recently reflected on her decision to move to Dubai in 2014 and start a family with husband Bader Shammas, with whom she shares a son, Luai, who was born in 2023.
“It was all so overwhelming and consuming,” the 39-year-old told Vogue Arabia, referencing the hectic Hollywood lifestyle she rebelled against upon moving out of the United States to seek peace overseas.
She added, “I should have listened to my mom and dad and moved back to New York. But I was young and wanted to be in L.A.,” Lohan said of navigating the intrusive public scrutiny as a major It girl of the early aughts.
“And I didn’t know. So yeah, while a lot of it was fun, it was hard when I was young,” Lohan continued. “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 finished, telling the outlet, “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.”
In a 2025 Entertainment Weekly cover story interview, Lohan’s Freakier Friday costar Jamie Lee Curtis praised the actress’ decision to move to Dubai to protect herself.
“She was looking to find [a calm] place and quiet. That wasn’t going to be in New York or L.A., because they’re filled with aggro people. It impressed me so much,” said Curtis.
“I grew up so much in the public eye that I never really had the space to take time for me and just live a normal life,” Lohan added. “I found it there.”
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After weathering numerous tabloid scandals and legal issues after rising to superstardom in films like The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, and Mean Girls, Lohan mounted a comeback four years ago after signing a multi-picture deal with Netflix that produced 2022’s Falling for Christmas, Irish Wish, and Our Little Secret (both 2024).
“Everything I do is [about] what’s going to work for my family,” Lohan told EW last year of choosing projects at this stage of her life, with a renewed focus. “If something works around that, it’s meant to happen. If it doesn’t work around that, it’s a no-go.”
She also called the successful Freakier Friday sequel a “manifestation” she worked on while determining how to return to the artform she loved, after having not fronted a theatrical motion picture since 2013’s The Canyons 12 years prior.
“I had this thing in my head during COVID, I was like, ‘I want to work with Netflix and do a couple movies, but I want to work with Disney again, too.’ It came to fruition because I believed it,” Lohan said. “Those things are meant to happen. I love my life, and I’m grateful for these moments I have.”
Amid developing a biopic film about Ann-Margret, Lohan will next appear in Hulu’s TV series adaptation of the novel Count My Lies, which will mark the performer’s first lead role in a scripted television program.
Lohan’s Parent Trap costar Lisa Ann Walter also teased to EW at the 2025 Emmys that Lohan contacted Disney about making a Parent Trap sequel following the success of Freakier Friday.