Lindsay Reborn

CLASSIC BEAUTY, WILD CHILD, SILVER SCREEN SIREN,

INMATE #2409752. THE RISE, FALL AND REDEMPTION OF

AMERICA'S MOST FASCINATING CELEBRITY

Aside from the clickety-clackoi her stilettos, the studio is dead silent. Moments later, having wended her way in front of the camera, Lindsay Lohan stares playfully into the lens—through it, in fact. After widening her stance, she raises her chin and drops her arms to her sides, allowing her gold robe to slip from her shoulders. Save for the expensive footwear, she is suddenly—mercifully—naked. After months of dedicated prayer and endless negotiation, Our Lady of TMZ has revealed her ultimate secret. She has communed with the tarnished saints, Norma Jeane et al. No wonder it's so damn quiet.

For those bearing witness, the fact that this shoot—this pop culture meta-event—is happening at all seems miraculous in itself. No need to reflect on how we got here—the courtroom drama, the Hail Mary hearings—we're just thankful it's where we are. Meanwhile, outside the studio, a cacophony grows.

Airtight nondisclosure agreements and blood oaths notwithstanding, it turns out the entire world knows exactly what Lindsay is up to, how much the magazine is paying her and why it is or isn't the best or worst thing any famous person,

living or dead, has ever done. By nightfall, Lindsay Lohan Playboy is a trending topic on Google. By the next morning, millions of peo­ple around the globe have weighed in on the matter, asking mostly the same questions: Why would she? Who is she? Hell, even the panty-waists at The New York Times will devote a column to the topic.

From where we're standing, the answer is simple: She's a grown-ass woman, we paid her a pretty penny and half the earth's population wanted to see her naked. As for who she is, you'll have to take Lindsay at her word: This is the beginning, not the end of her career—a millennial hat tip to Drew Barrymore, perhaps. In rehab by the time she hit her teens, with her secrets splashed all over the checkout aisle, Drew appeared in the January 1995 issue at the age of 19, and by 1998 she was back on top in The Wedding Singer—a star again, for all the right reasons.

And let's not forget how Lindsay got here. She first turned heads in Hollywood as the pre­cocious 11-year-old star of Disney's Parent Trap remake. Leading roles in Freaky Friday, Mean Girls and Herbie: Fully Loaded soon followed, cementing her rep as an actress with supe­rior chops. She released a couple of albums that sold well, poked around in fashion and started exploring more serious roles. But then... well, to vastly oversimplify, let's just say that a 2007 DUI arrest and a penchant for late-night shenanigans promptly turned her into a tabloid caricature, and it's been a bit of a bumpy ride ever since. But always there was the talent.

The absurdity of Lindsay's current position in the celebrity-industrial complex has not gone unnoticed. "I have no idea why there is this fascination with everything I do," she says. "I suppose it's all part of this trend of people wanting to know every detail of a celebrity's life. I mean, once we get to the point where maga­zines are doing pictorials on the clothes I wore in court—that's just so unimportant."

Those in search of an explanation might also consider her politics. Money aside, why pose for playboy?

"Sex and sexuality are a part of nature, and I go along with nature," she says. "I think Marilyn Monroe said that, and I agree with her. Knowing your body and being in touch with your body is important because it gives you confidence, and in life, women need con­fidence. It's a very male-dominated world, so knowing yourself and being comfortable with your body is an important thing for me as a woman. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that's mine."

So what has she learned from her youthful misadventures? Is there anything she wishes she had known way back when?

"That ultimately we are each responsible for ourselves and for our actions," she says. "Look­ing back, I probably would have listened to and taken more advice from the people I admire and would have followed through with it more, but my stubbornness at 18 and 19 got in the way. I've learned that time flies faster than you think, and because you only live once you have to learn from your mistakes."

A persona as large as Lindsay's deserves a special stage. So we offered her Marilyn Monroe's in this re-creation of the classic 1949 shoot by Tom Kelley, from which the first playboy Centerfold was plucked. But before it was over, we had one more question: Having faced down jail and worked in a morgue, is there anything Lindsay's still afraid of?

"Uh, not really," she says. "You do realize I just posed nude for playboy?"

We sure do.

See more of Lindsay at playboy, com/lohan.