In a new interview — conducted before she went to jail or rehab — Lindsay Lohan claims her wild days are behind her.
"I was irresponsible. And I'm not making excuses," she says in October's Vanity Fair, according to USA Today and the New York Post, which feature excerpts from the issue.
She describes her partying days as her "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."
When she first moved to Los Angeles, she says tabloids were her main source of news and that was "really scary and sad … I would look up to those girls … the Britneys and whatever. And I would be like, I want to be like that."
Looking back, the former child star says she wishes she had more "structure" in her life before hitting it big.
"I had structure, and then I lost all the structure in my life," she says. "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."
She lashes out at estranged father Michael. "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," she says. "But then he has to go and do an interview right after."
She blames him for spreading lies about her. Contradicting what her dad has said, the actress swears, "I've never abused prescription drugs. I never have — never in my life. I have no desire to. That's not who I am. 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, O.K., '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."
Today, 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."
Adds Lohan, "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."
