By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Lindsay Lohan, the actress, party girl and one-woman driving menace, continued to spiral downward yesterday, although it's not clear how much further she can fall.
The starlet's arrest early yesterday in Santa Monica on drunken driving and cocaine possession charges came just days after she was released from treatment at a Malibu rehab clinic. Her apparent relapse suggests either the depths of Lohan's addiction or the ineffectiveness of her treatment. Lohan reportedly checked into another facility immediately after being released from custody.
This was Lohan's second brush with the law in less than two months. She had a run-in with some shrubs and a tree on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills on Memorial Day weekend -- her third car accident in two years.
Lohan's latest arrest occurred after she allegedly engaged in a high-speed chase and eventually in an argument with a woman police said was the mother of her personal assistant, who had quit just hours before. It was unclear why Lohan was chasing the woman.
For those keeping score, Lohan's recent rap sheet can be summarized thusly:
Charges: DUI (alcohol, cocaine also discovered at scene), misdemeanor hit-and-run (May incident); DUI, driving with a suspended license, possession of cocaine, transporting a narcotic (yesterday).
Vehicles involved: convertible Mercedes SL-65 (May); GM Denali sport ute (yesterday).
Arraignment dates: Aug. 24 (May); not established (yesterday's charges).
Physical damage: vegetation (May); none (yesterday).
Bail amounts: $30,000 (May); $25,000 (yesterday).
Career damage: incalculable.
Prison term(s): not out of the question.
The setting of her latest arrest was consistent: Santa Monica is part of the Bermuda Triangle of Celebrity Misbehavior, a zone that runs from western Hollywood through Beverly Hills and west to the Pacific Ocean and up the coast to Malibu.
And Lohan's troubles with sobriety and the law have made her the queen of Hollywood's Bad Girls, a group that seems to keep tabloid editors employed by acting with the public comportment of dockworkers on pay day.
The coterie of ingenues includes heiress and freshly minted jailbird Paris Hilton; underwear-spurning former pop singer Britney Spears; sobriety-challenged sometime actress Tara Reid; and the otherwise mysteriously employed personality Nicole Richie (to be fair, the tabloids also obsess over other women who haven't caused members of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department or Beverly Hills Police Department any recent exertion, such as Jessica Simpson, Hilary Duff and Angelina Jolie).
Beyond the mysteries of Lohan's physical instability -- her estranged father, Michael, who has battled his own substance-abuse problems, has said his daughter has "multiple addictions" -- the latest incident raises a host of questions.
Why, for example, would Lohan allegedly carry a packet of cocaine in her pocket so soon after her release from rehab, with a court case pending, and just one block from the Santa Monica Police Department?
Why didn't Lohan's alcohol monitoring bracelet -- which she began wearing voluntarily after her last legal run-in -- fail to alert others to a blood-alcohol level that was well above the legal limit, according to police?
And why can't Lohan, like Hilton, just get a designated driver? Or call a cab?
In a statement released to the celebrity Web site TMZ.com yesterday, Lohan's attorney, Blair Berk, said Lohan's sobriety had been confirmed by daily tests since she was released into outpatient care. "Unfortunately," Berk said, "last night I was informed that Lindsay had relapsed. The bracelet has now been removed. She is safe, out of custody and presently receiving medical care."
Lohan's very busy publicist, Leslie Sloane Zelnik, did not return calls yesterday seeking comment.
"It's a very tragic story," says Mike Fleeman, who has covered Lohan's travails as the West Coast editor of People magazine's Web site. "This is something that happens to regular people every day. She just happens to be a famous actress who happens to be dealing with this while everyone is watching."
Lohan, 21, is the rare Hollywood specimen: a child actress ("The Parent Trap," "Freaky Friday") who made a successful transition to teenage ("Mean Girls") and adult ("A Prairie Home Companion") roles. Her arrest came the same week her latest movie opens, a thriller with the uncomfortably morbid title "I Know Who Killed Me."
Lohan's latest incident follows Hilton's incarceration last month for violating her probation on a suspended license conviction.
Lohan has a reputation as a troubled and unreliable performer who disrupts production.
Her next film, "Poor Things" co-starring Shirley MacLaine, has been delayed to accommodate her treatment, according to Reuters.
During the filming last year of "Georgia Rule" with Jane Fonda, Lohan proved so difficult that the chief executive of the movie's studio, Morgan Creek Productions, threatened legal action against her and called her behavior "discourteous, irresponsible and unprofessional" in a letter that leaked publicly.
Says Fleeman: "In Hollywood, people are very forgiving of just about any transgression except those that cost money."
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