Trending Now: Lindsay Lohan Wonders Why She Wasn't Protected at Height of Fame - Fans React

Trending Now: This entertainment story covers the latest buzz, reactions, and updates surrounding Trending Now: Lindsay Lohan Wonders Why She Wasn’t Protected at Height of Fame – Fans React..

Originally appeared on E! Online

Lindsay Lohan wishes people would’ve had a clue about what she was going through in the aughts.

Nearly 20 years after her life, mistakes and image were a hot topic of conversation, the now 39-year-old confessed that living in Hollywood at the height of her career was “all so overwhelming and consuming.”

“I should have listened to my mom and dad and moved back to New York,” Lindsay, referencing parents Dina Lohan and Michael Lohan, admitted in an interview with Vogue Arabia published Feb. 26. “But I was young and wanted to be in LA. And I didn’t know. So yeah, while a lot of it was fun, it was hard when I was young. It was a double-edged sword.”

Given Lindsay was only a teenager when she—along with her friends Paris Hilton and Britney Spears—was put under a tabloid microscope, she reflected, “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.”

More from E! Online

Ultimately, the noise of her Hollywood life was what led her to leave the spotlight altogether.

“I wasn’t having fun in the business anymore,” she explained. “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.”

And when Lindsay—who shares son Luai, 2, with husband Bader Shammas—decided to dip her toe back into acting in 2022, she came with a newfound confidence—and boundaries.

“When I was younger, I wasn’t so comfortable saying how I felt about a character and being involved with the process of it,” the Parent Trap star recalled. “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.”

Jason Mendez/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

Lindsay isn’t the only main character of the early 2000s who has reflected on what has been so yesterday. Hilary Duff, who infamously feuded with Lindsay during the height of their Y2K fame, recently shared they have long since buried the hatchet.

“Lindsay came up to me at a club and was like, ‘Are we good?’” Hilary recalled on a Feb. 25 appearance on Call Her Daddy. “And I was like, ‘We’re good.’ She was like, ‘Let’s take a shot.’ I was like, ‘OK.’”

For a look at Lindsay through the years, keep reading…

1998