Although 16 year-old Taylor Momsen's edgy, beyond-her-years look makes some onlookers uneasy, the Gossip Girl actress resents any comparisons to another former child star. "I get such a bad rap for being like Lindsay Lohan," Momsen says in the February issue of Seventeen magazine.
Momsen then qualifies her Lohan diss, saying, "I hate naming names because she's really sweet — and I'm really not. I don't go out. I have no desire to be some tabloid party girl. I'm entirely a loner. I have been my entire life."
But the actress, who made her big Hollywood debut in 2000's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, does embrace her reputation as an "angsty" teen. "I'll be angsty until I'm 80 years old," she quips. "I think that keeps things fresh. But I always think angst is such a derogatory word toward teenagers. It just means you're figuring s*** out."
Like Lohan, Momsen has music aspirations, and fronts the punk-rock band The Pretty Reckless. She complains that "people don't really take me seriously" because of her age. But she's a little different than other 16 year-olds, she insists.
"[People] think most 16-year-olds don't know what they want to do. But I actually really do, because I've been thinking about [music] since I was 2."