Lindsay Lohan has many qualities, but, let’s be honest, she has never been noted for her impeccable judgment.
Even by Lohan’s standards, one cannot help but wonder what the party-hearty former child star, who until recently ran a bar on a Greek island for an MTV reality show, could see in the billionaire potentate Mohammed bin Salman.
Indeed, ever since rumors first started to emerge of a friendship between Lilo and MBS—reports claimed they’ve become text buddies and that the Saudi ruler has been flying the actress around the world by private jet and even gave her a gift-wrapped credit card—students of Hollywood-Middle Eastern relations have wrestled with the question of what their after-dinner chats might comprise.
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MBS’ kingdom adheres to an austere and repressive Muslim ideology and only recently allowed women to drive. Its operatives, he was forced to admit, brutally murdered and dismembered The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
So what do Lilo and the billionaire leader of the oil-rich desert kingdom talk about once the subject of Mean Girls has been exhausted?
Has she ever pointed out to him the down-home Mean Girls wisdom of Janis, who memorably declares: “There are two kinds of evil people in this world. Those who do evil stuff and those who see evil stuff being done and don’t try to stop it.”
Well, now, we have the answer, sort of.
According to Lindsay’s father, World’s Greatest Dad finalist Michael Lohan, who has made a decent living out of exploiting his daughter’s fame when not in jail, Lindsay and MBS share a “platonic and respectful” friendship.
Speaking to Page Six at Denise Rich’s Angel Ball on Monday, Lohan said: “They are just friends, Lindsay has a lot of powerful friends in the Middle East, because she is huge out there. Lindsay met MBS because of the work she has been doing in the Middle East. She is working to help people in the region, particularly refugees.”
He added, “Nobody writes about the good work Lindsay does in Syria. They just want to hear the bad stuff. She has a platonic and respectful relationship with MBS, nothing more.”
When asked by Page Six’s astute reporter if he was perhaps concerned that Lindsay is spending time with someone accused of imprisoning members of his own family and ordering the murder of Khashoggi, Michael said, “None of that has proven to be true,” even though, you know, it has.
In recent years, Lohan has spent much of her time in Dubai, where she still has a huge following. In 2017 she met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as part of a campaign to highlight the plight of Syrian refugees and was photographed visiting a refugee camp.
Lohan first shot to fame in 2003 as the child star of Freaky Friday.
Things went majorly awry in 2007, when she was arrested twice in short order, once after crashing her Mercedes-Benz into a tree in Beverly Hills and again after an alleged car chase with the mother of her former personal assistant.
In both cases, Lohan was found to be in possession of small amounts of cocaine, below the legal threshold for prosecution.
MBS meanwhile, when he is not murdering journalists, has developed quite a reputation as quite the celebrity whisperer.
Indeed, before the unfortunate incident with Khashoggi blew his liberal credibility, he would frequently use international tours to meet not just with politicians but also celebs and thinkers including Oprah Winfrey, Tm Cook, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Thomas Friedman and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
And just how safe can you really feel around MBS?
Michel Lohan has no qualms: “Lindsay says he’s a good person. She feels safe, she has good people around her, and she knows how to conduct herself.”
Let’s hope she does.
