Is Lindsay Lohan the Pope?
The scene at the red carpet premiere of Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club was hushed and expectant, like clergy awaiting news from the Vatican.
Lindsay Lohan attends MTV's 'Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club' Premiere Party at Moxy Times Square on January 7, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for MTV)
“Does anyone have a hairbrush?”
The question sparked a flurry of activity in the elevator up to the 18th floor of the Moxy Hotel in Times Square's Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge, where the red-carpet event and premiere party for Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club was being held. A pink brush emerged from a stranger’s purse and was quickly employed to tame the seeker’s already-glossy blowout; just like that, the clutch of previously unfamiliar reporters in the elevator was cemented by the sisterly bond of, well, wanting to look good for Lindsay.
After all, we were all in roughly the same young-millennial age pool, just old enough to have clipped out Vanity Fair’s July 2003 “It’s Raining Teens” spread and taped it up in our lockers, carefully studying Lohan’s favorite lip glosses (“Chapstick, Kiehl’s Lip Balm”), her pet peeves (“People who are fake”) and her catchphrase (“Peace and love.”)
For a one-time teen queen of Lohan’s magnitude, it’s hard to overcome the past; despite years of grown-up film roles, business ventures, and confusing international scandals, to women of a certain generation, she’ll always be “the one from Mean Girls.” Lohan’s new show centers around her attempt to build Lohan’s Beach House, a club and restaurant “hosted” by a rotating cast of reality and YouTube stars, into the hottest spot in Mykonos. Monday’s premiere event felt like a deliberate attempt to undo that reputation, but prime remembrances of Lohan’s past still swirled as lesser Beach Club hosts were paraded out in her stead, accompanied by a full “face sheet” to help identify them. (“Do you think she’ll come out doing that Dubai accent?” speculated one reporter.)
The Beach Club dress code has already been the source of Instagram drama—Lohan herself commented on a photo of two servers in matching white robes and different pairs of heels, writing, with Miranda Priestly-level sangfroid, “Wear the same shoes please, or you’re fired.”
In reality, the dress code for Beach Club employees is just as exacting: according to “VIP Host” Mike Mulderrig, known in online circles for his YouTube channel, male and female servers alike dress all in black, with men being given a choice of tank top or button-down (Mike opts for the tank top, explaining, “I’m from New Jersey, I don’t do sleeves”). On “Savage Saturdays,” everyone wears white, in a very Diddy-esque moment.
As for the clientele’s attire, “VIP Host” May Yassine—who’s perhaps best known on the Zayn Malik message-board circuit for her alleged dalliance with the singer—says, “People were topless, wearing thong bikinis. I saw a lot of boobs.” As the influencers filed down the red carpet, the chemical composition of the air around us seemed to change; “Does everything suddenly smell like vanilla?” I wondered aloud. An OK! reporter confirmed for me: “They all came in with their own scent.”
All of a sudden, the riotous crowd of reporters grilling influencers grew eerily silent. Like the devout studying the Vatican for the smoke signals that indicate a new pope’s coronation, we all suddenly turned toward the door, searching for the flame-red locks that would signify Lohan’s arrival. We pressed closer to the entrance, clenched around Lohan’s entry point like a fist around a pearl. Suddenly, she appeared, resembling—like so many celebrities in person—nothing more than a wax statue of herself. Her dress was white; her heels were high; her lips were the same shade of scarlet as the carpet she walked down. At her throat, a single word sparkled in diamonds: “BOSS.”
As Lohan answered questions, her voice—low and musical, like Daisy Buchanan’s, if Daisy ran a Mykonos nightclub instead of an East Egg estate—was frequently overshadowed by the RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants next to her, one of whom was loudly holding forth about her “all-Chipotle diet.”
As a lowly print reporter without a camera of my own, I was relegated to the back of the scrum and didn’t get to ask Lohan my extremely hard-hitting question (“What do you typically wear to the club?”), but it was enough just to be in her presence. Staring at the anchor tattoo on her shoulder, I was immediately transported back to my middle-school self, the one who watched The Parent Trap so frequently that the VHS malfunctioned; I dreamed of finding my own twin at summer camp.
After thirty or so minutes of game question-answering about her "tough" managerial style (and a few attempts to dig into Lohan’s personal life, which her Dina-Lohan-lookalike PR person quickly shut down), it was over; the talent had to pee. As Lohan filed out, the on-camera reporters in her wake began discussing the merits of DryBar versus at-home blowouts; behind them, I confided in a Refinery29 reporter about my crush. A mere half-hour in the presence of La Lohan had made teens of us all, once more.
