Danny Martindale/WireImageNoooooo!
Having gotten our fill in the 00s, there's nothing quite as unsettling in this bubbly bubble of a celebutainment universe than seeing Lindsay Lohan making headlines.
Because even if, in the end, it isn't a big to-do, you can't help but always be on edge with the now 30-year-old actress. Not to sound pessimistic, but it's going to be awhile until her very name doesn't conjure all the wrongs with the too-much-too-soon, bad-choices, destructive-circle culture of young celebrity.
We thought we were getting closer to that day, Lohan now having been off probation for 14 months—after almost eight years of being on it for various episodes of law-breaking and probation violations that dominated her 20s.
She's been living in London, she's engaged, she's writing a book inspired by her own rough road, she was offering words of wisdom to Justin Bieber...
But maybe Lohan hasn't quite reconciled that part of her that was crying out for help with the part that so obviously would prefer an undramatic existence.
Perhaps not quite thinking it through at the time (kinda like everyone who posts relationship-drama stuff, thinking it's a good idea in the moment), Lohan said in a video posted to Snapchat Friday night: "My fiancé's being really angry at me, but I'm drinking water to get him to come home. Honey, come home, please." She captioned the pic, "E.T phone home."
Then late Saturday night, she posted on Instagram a pic of her and Russian businessman Egor Tarabasov, captioned: "I guess I was the same at 23... S--tty time- it changes at 26/27 @e2505t thanks for not coming home tonight. Fame changes people."
That post, since deleted, was followed by: "Wow thanks #fiance with Russian hooker @pa5hlondon" (since deleted), "Home?" (also deleted), a tweet reading "lindsay lohan labour pains trailer - I am pregnant!!!" and a link to a Google search that turns up a pic of her in the TV movie with a baby bump (deleted); and, still up at the moment, a selfie of the couple with Egor's face scribbled over and the caption, "He wore black and I wore white... I guess #art is whatever you make of it."
And Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang"—he wore black and I wore white / he would always win the fight—is not a happy song.
OK, so, unfortunately, all of that indicated some problems for what looked from the cheap seats like a solid relationship. Tarabasov has only been a celebrity by association, otherwise not famous and perhaps just what the proverbial doctor (or the regular one, who knows) ordered for Lohan, who has acknowledged in the past that the wrong circle of friends, associates and hangers-on played a big role in her storied troubles.
By Sunday morning Lohan was no longer following Tarabasov on Instagram and paparazzi had snapped some pictures of a damaged front door at the couple's place.
The Metropolitan Police Press Bureau confirms that cops were called to a London address at 5:10 a.m. on Sunday morning following a report of a woman in distress. It was the officers who forced entry into the home. There was no one inside but after inquiries were made they determined that the occupants were safe and well. No arrests were made or charges filed.
The Sun, meanwhile, posted video purported to be of Lohan screaming at Tarabasov on their balcony and telling him to "get out." A neighbor told the tabloid, "I thought maybe something serious had happened. The silence of night was broken with this dreadful shouting and swearing and crying. Dear me."
A source told E! News Monday that Lindsay says there have been issues with Egor since her birthday, which was July 2, and "that he hasn't been good to her the way he used to be."
"She talked about how he was maybe too young," the source added. "That he was getting affected by the fame, that she had started seeing changes in him."
As for the cryptics Labor Pains tweet, the insider says Lohan has never said anything about a pregnancy and that the actress is most likely headed to New York to be with mom Dina Lohan and her siblings. Then again, the source said, she could also be headed to Ibiza, because "it's Lindsay."
And then this morning, her perspective perhaps a little clearer after the sudden outpouring of scorn and grief on social media over the weekend, Lohan posted on Instagram a pic of a heart-shaped cloud and a plea for privacy: "I would appreciate if these speculations regarding my personal life would respectfully come to a halt. Unfortunately, a private matter has become more public than I can control and I would be extremely grateful if my fiancé and myself could discuss our personal matters on our own. There are more important things going on in the world than our relationship. Please leave us be to solve our personal matters."
While of course Lohan, as much as any person, has a right to not be followed, harassed and otherwise intruded upon—i.e. of course she deserves privacy—it's obvious to everyone else (if not to her for whatever reason) that this current situation was whipped into more of a frenzy because of Lohan's participation on social media.
Sure, in a different kind of world that video would've never been shot, let alone made public, and no one would have made any inquiries into what Lohan's tweets meant or written about them at all. But that was never going to happen in this world. Lohan's too famous and too much has come before. And while that doesn't mean the Mean Girls star has no right to keep her personal matters private, when police get involved and she engages her 4.7 million Instagram followers and 9.3 million Twitter followers... Such is the situation right now.
However, in 2007, when Lohan was first arrested for DUI and two years before she joined Twitter, people lined up to see the train off, predicting a wreck along the way. This time we like to think it's all about wanting to keep the train in the station in order to avoid any chance of derailment.
Back when she had left L.A. for her home state of New York in 2012, Lohan told Us Weekly, "It took a while but it's like, What was I thinking? Why did I allow so many sycophants and bad influences to be around me? I was lonely and I didn't realize it. That's why I came back home to New York. I never feel lonely there. I can see my family and I have really good people in my life."
After her move to London, where she had scored a role in a West End production of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, Lohan told The Guardian in 2014, "In L.A. I didn't know what to do apart from go out every night. That's when my friends were free. And I would go out and there would be all these cameras there and that's when it became difficult."
Unlike when she lived in the States, "I can go for a run here on my own. I do every morning, early, and I think how my friends in New York would still be up partying at that time. I needed to grow up and London is a better place for me to do that than anywhere else."
So a level of privacy she hadn't been able to enjoy for years in the U.S. helped right the ship initially. But the running theme, for years, seems to be Lohan's choice of companions.
When you have the sort of problems that she's had and have been in and out of rehab, your inner circle becomes key to survival. And while she has seemed happy for months now, it looks as though she's become adrift once again.
Sunday she posted an old portrait of herself with a prayer emoji, followed by a shot of the Scream Queens cast with a shout-out to her Freaky Friday mom, Jamie Lee Curtis.
"@leicachick sending all my love - with you, they have futures ahead of them. Miss you. ...❤️beautiful people inside and out @curtisleejamie," Lohan wrote.
So laden with meaning, right? Or not. But the thing is, Lindsay Lohan has everyone wondering once again. Is she unhappy? Does she need help? Is this guy clearly not the one for her after all? Is London not the right place? Does some part of her miss making a spectacle and the attention that comes with it? Are there people in her life who are going to help her get through what's going on at home?
Even if any speculation over what movie Lindsay's going to do next or how she's going to get a movie career back on track has subsided, the concern for her as a person continues. People still root for her happiness and for her ability to truly shake the demons of the past. So when stuff like a 5 a.m. screaming fight and accusations that her fiancé is stepping out go public, the world takes notice.
And then, for the umpteenth time, we hope she never makes a headline like that again.