Lindsay Lohan (30) grew up in the spotlight. Her career as a model and actor started when she was just 3-years-old.
By age 11, after her role in The Parent Trap (1998) catapulted the child actor into international stardom, she could no longer walk on the street unrecognized.
Mean Girls (2004), another critical and commercial success, cemented Lohan’s image as a teen idol and assuring that paparazzi followed her every step.
But Hollywood, despite the glitz and glamor, is not an easy environment to grow up in and the first signs of Lohan being pushed too hard came when she was hospitalized in 2004 for stress-induced kidney infection. Next, being in constant pursuit by the paparazzi, she got into a series of car accidents.
Despite having established herself both as a commercial success with Hollywood box-office hits and a talented actress on the independent movie scene (as Meryl Streep once described Lohan, “She’s in command of the art form”), Lohan was not at peace with herself.
In 2007, after being arrested for driving under influence and possessing drugs, Lohan released a statement saying: “It is clear to me that my life has become completely unmanageable because I am addicted to alcohol and drugs.”
For the next seven years, her career was stalled and overshadowed by her battle with addiction. Since 2014 however, Lohan has been piecing her life back together, moving to London, getting involved in charity work and practicing Transcendental Meditation, which she has reportedly credited with turning her life around.
“I love spirituality and that really drives me,” Lohan said on the U.S. talk show The View. “Meditation, transcendental meditation, that really clears my mind, just being able to switch off.”
Speaking on Turkey’s Habertürk TV, Lohan added, “This became a very big ritual of my life. I took the time to kind of take out and weed out the bad, and only keep the good.”
“I made a mind map when I turned 30 of what I wanted in the next ten years spiritually: What feeds me, what keeps me humble here, who do I wanna help, what do I wanna do with that help, and how can I stay continuously doing those things,” Lohan explained on The View.
