Cover Story: Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

Still, Lohan can be so relentlessly positive that, after a while, she starts to sound like a candidate for public office. On her dad, she says, "It's actually been kind of relaxing, being able to let people know that my family's not perfect." On reaching voting age: "I'm not very politically involved. And I don't like to talk about it. I mean, if you say you're a Democrat, that'll turn off Republicans, and that's half of your fan base." She answers questions about her party-girl image as if she's speaking to a parole officer or an extremely gullible grandparent. "I know all the guys who own the clubs," she says. "We made a deal where they let me come in and I'll drink only Red Bull. If I wanted to drink, I'd just stay home and do it with my friends. I don't do drugs. Never have, never will. I don't need to do that stuff to have fun."

Lohan began modeling when she was five. "The Ford modeling agency had all blondes with blue eyes at the time," she says. "I was a redhead with freckles. But I never cried or complained like a lot of the other kids." Lohan's mother, Dina, is a former Rockette. Her father was a Wall Street trader who developed and then sold a multimillion-dollar pasta business started by Lohan's grandfather. She and her three younger siblings grew up in Cold Spring Harbor, on Long Island's North Shore -- which is Gatsby, not Buttafuoco, country. "They have two-acre zoning there," Lohan says, "so we had a lot of property." As she moved from modeling to acting, she tried to keep her career on the q.t. at school. "I was ten when I did Parent Trap," Lohan says. "I left school for eight months. When I came back, my friends were like, 'Where'd you go?' I said, 'My family and I went on a long vacation.' Then the movie came out, and they were like, 'Um, Lindsay? That's you in Parent Trap.' And I said, 'Oh, yeah. I also did this movie while we were gone.' "

Around that time, Lohan's father was sent to federal prison for stock fraud. He served a four-year sentence. "Somebody screwed him over," Lohan says dismissively. "This kind of thing has happened to so many people I know, it's almost, like, normal."

How did your parents tell you about it?

They didn't! My mom just said, "Dad's working. He's away. He's busy." I finally figured it out. I was like, "Mom, I'm not an idiot."

Do you ever feel bad that your fame is having this side effect of making your dad's problems big news in the tabloids?

My dad's a big boy. He's gonna do what he's gonna do. I don't feel bad for him. And I don't feel bad for me. I can handle it.

Did you visit him in jail?

I don't wanna talk about this stuff!

I'm only asking because having a parent go to jail would be a traumatic thing for anyone, but you were only eleven. So it seems relevant.

You know, when my dad would do things like that, it used to really hurt me. At the same time, he's the best dad. He's the most loving, kind person you could ever meet. My parents are working some things out right now. But they've been married for twenty years. They'll work it out.

(Excerpted from RS 955)