Lindsay Lohan Admits 'I Was Irresponsible'

Her youth, her absent father and her own poor choice of role models led Lindsay Lohan astray, the actress admits in a revealing interview conducted last month, shortly before she began to serve her jail term and stint in treatment.

"I was irresponsible. And I'm not making excuses," Lohan says, according to USA Today and the New York Post, quoting the 24-year-old from a new cover story in Vanity Fair.

In what she now considers "scary and sad," Lohan says part of her problem was that the tabloids were her single news source: "I would look up to those girls … the Britneys and whatever. And I would be like, I want to be like that."

Now, though, her clubbing days are over. "I see where that's gotten me now," she says, "and I don't like it."

Not that she finds her past reputation as a party girl entirely deserved. "If I were the alcoholic everyone says I am," she says, "then putting a [SCRAM] bracelet on would have ended me up in detox, in the emergency room, because I would have had to come down from all the things that people say I'm taking and my father says I'm taking – so that says something, because I was fine."

As for drug use, "I've never abused prescription drugs. I never have – never in my life. I have no desire to. That's not who I am," she says. "I've admitted to the things that I've done – to, you know, dabbling in certain things and trying things 'cause I was young and curious and thought it was like, okay, 'cause other people were doing it and other people put it in front of me. And I see what happened in my life because of it."

Going to Los Angeles for her career in her late teens, Lohan, a Long Island native, says, "These were my college years … but they were in the public eye. I was irresponsible. I was experimenting. I was doing certain things that people do 10 times more of when they're in college."


Points Finger at Father
The problem, she surmises, was "I didn't have any structure. In the beginning, I had structure, and then I lost all the structure in my life. I think a lot of it was because when I was doing my first slew of movies, it was very go-go, and I had a lot of responsibility, and I think just the second I didn't have [structure] anymore – I was 18, 19 – with a ton of money."

Largely at fault for her rocky foundation, she says, is father Michael Lohan, who was not there for his family.

"I think if anyone should be looked at medically it's him," says Lindsay. "He has such a big chemical imbalance at this point because of all the things he's done to himself. … The worst part of it is you turn around and you see your dad crying and normally you'd be, like, happy that your father's there. But then he has to go and do an interview right after."

Moving ahead, she says, "I want my career back. I know that I'm a damn good actress, and it's been my passion since I was a child, and I know that when I care about something, I put 100 percent and more into it. … I want the respect that I had when I was doing great movies. And if that takes not going out to a club at night, then so be it. It's not fun anyway. I don't care. It's the same thing every time."