Following a few difficult years in which some fans worried about her health and others treated her like a punchline, Lindsay Lohan appears to have landed back on her feet.

Lohan got married to Bader Shammas earlier this year, and she seems to be enjoying a life of quiet domesticity in her new home in the United Arab Emirates.

But it stands to reason that from time to time, Lindsay wonders what might have been.

After all, it wasn’t all that long ago that she was one of the most famous entertainers on the planet.

Lindsay hasn’t appeared in a film since 2019, but that will soon change, thanks to her role in the upcoming Netflix release Falling For Christmas.

It’s a step in the right direction, but playing an amnesia victim in a straight-to-streaming holiday romcom probably isn’t what Lindsay imagined for herself at this point in her career.

The wild success of her Mean Girls co-stars (Amanda Seyfried, Rachel McAdams, and Lizzie Kaplan have all gone on to bigger and better things) likely underscores Lohan’s sense of disappointment.

So what happened?

Well, the usual narrative is that Lindsay partied too much and burned a lot of bridges, and she eventually turned into a risk that no studio was willing to take.

But in a new interview with Cosmopolitan, Lindsay claims that she was merely a victim of bad timing.

The actress says that there’s “too much” social media nowadays, but she argues that tools like Instagram and Twitter would have enabled her to exert control over her public image, instead of allowing the tabloid media to shape the way she’s perceived.

“When I first started out in the business, none of us had a say in how to control our own narrative. There were paparazzi pictures, and then people ran with it,” Lindsay told the mag.

“So I think it’s really good that in this day and age, people can say who they are and who they want to be,” Lohan continued.

“And I admire and appreciate that. I’m a little jealous because I didn’t have that.”

We think we understand what Lindsay is saying here.

Social media can, after all, offer an opportunity to explain one’s self or to offer insight into unusual choices or behaviors.

But it also offers new and exciting ways to mess up.

Maybe, a young, frequently intoxicated Lindsay would have used Instagram to offer insight into actions and behaviors that were misrepresented by the media.

But it’s just as likely that she would have used that additional exposure to torpedo her own career even faster.

LiLo went on to reveal that she finds the current social media climate more than a little confusing.

“You have to take everything people say with a grain of salt and just be you. And slow down, because everyone’s so quick right now,” she said.

“People just don’t stop. You’ve got to chill,” Lindsay continued.

“I think it moves really fast, and I just try to keep up as best I can. And I check everything before I post it. I’ll send it to people — because you have to,”

Sounds like Lindsay is being much more careful about her public image these days.

And we wish her all the luck in the world as she attempts to rebuild her career.

Lindsay Lohan: If Instagram Had Been Around When I Was Younger, I Would Still Have a … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip .