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Y2K Icons! Where Former Party Girls Nicole Richie, Tara Reid and Lindsay Lohan Are Today
In the early 2000s, it wasn’t a party without Nicole Richie, Tara Reid and Lindsay Lohan. In Touch investigates what happened after they quit clubbing.
Nicole Richie: Then
The Simple Life star famously spent 82 minutes behind bars in 2007 — her four-day sentence reduced because of overcrowding in the jail system. That wasn’t the first time the 41-year-old adopted daughter of Lionel Richie and his first wife, Brenda, got into trouble. The party girl was arrested four times, including for heroin possession (she was sentenced to three years’ probation) and did several stints in rehab for addictions to cocaine, heroine and prescription pills. She later pointed to her parents’ 1993 divorce as a factor in her acting out. “Their way of making me happy was to say yes to anything I wanted,” she said. “But I don’t think a little girl should have that much freedom.”
Nicole Richie Now
Meeting now-husband Joel Madden in 2006 spurred Nicole to turn her life around. Five months pregnant when she went to jail, she later reflected, “It’s been a pattern in my life — when I get in trouble, I try to get out of it. And the difference is, is that I’m a mother now and not only thinking about myself.” Now a mom of two, Nicole founded the fashion label House of Harlow and starred in the sitcom Great News. And instead of raising hell, she’s raising chickens! “If Martha Stewart has some,” she’s said of her flock. “I need them too!”
Tara Reid Then
The American Pie star was a pioneering party girl of the 2000s. Often photographed stumbling out of L.A. clubs looking the worse for wear, she became a punch line — and a punching bag. “I was the first one that started this image,” the 47-year-old recalled in a recent interview. But the New Jersey native added that her reputation was worse than the reality. “I never did sex tapes. I never did anything wrong. I’ve never even gotten a speeding ticket,” she insisted, griping that her party-girl image derailed her career. “But what I did get punished for is, if I wasn’t shooting, I went to Europe right away. I’d be popping pills, and I had a great time!”
Tara Reid Now
The actress, who had a bit of a comeback with 2013’s surprise hit Sharknado, pivoted to producing. “That’s when I said, ‘OK, we’re going to turn this around, people are going to realize how smart I am, how I’m producing, how I’m creating all these things and then they’re going to have to stop because they can’t keep picking on you.’” She’ll be in front of the cameras soon in season 2 of Fox’s unscripted series Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, competing against such celebs as JoJo Siwa, Tom Sandoval and Savannah Chrisley in grueling challenges during winter warfare training in New Zealand!
Lindsay Lohan Then
With six, count ’em, six mug shots, the Parent Trap child star was in and out of jail and rehab for years, pulling stunts like skipping a court date to fly to the Cannes Film Festival and wearing her alcohol-monitoring SCRAM ankle device to an MTV Movie Awards afterparty. (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: Her dad, Michael Lohan, has done three prison stints and appeared on Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.) The 37-year-old, dubbed a “cautionary tale” by The New York Times, also developed a bad reputation for showing up late to set, though her obvious talent had many hoping for a comeback. As her A Prairie Home Companion costar Meryl Streep put it in 2012, “I pray for Lindsay.”
Lindsay Lohan Now
Getting out of L.A. proved to be transformational for the once-troubled starlet. Now settled in Dubai, where she lives with her financier husband, Bader Shammas, Lindsay gave birth to their son, Luai, in July. “Once she got away, she realized how messed up and traumatic her childhood had been,” an insider tells In Touch. “She’s found peace and a sense of stability with Bader.” She’s even back to acting. Her 2022 Netflix movie, Falling for Christmas, was a hit and Irish Wish is in the pipeline. As for her party-girl past, she’s said, “People have to just let go of it and stop bringing it up … it’s gone. It’s dead.”
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