CHILD STARS AND MESMERISING MELTDOWNS
LINDSAY LOHAN
In a sense the world would be a lot more boring if every actress made the transition from girlhood to womanhood as seamlessly as Jodie Foster or Saoirse Ronan. Which is why we perhaps have to be grateful to Lindsay Lohan, who has, it cannot be denied, at least made burnout a little entertaining. Where to begin with this singed Disney princess? Perhaps with the hottest mugshot in history. Or the fact that she could spawn articles like The Top 5 most ridiculous Lindsay Lohan excuses (including ‘I borrowed these jeans I’m wearing with cocaine in them’). The Mykonos dancing video: joyous, unhinged, brilliantly off the beat. Who cares what Disney future coulda woulda been. She’s living her best life.
BRITNEY SPEARS
There’s a selfhelp mantra that goes: If Britney can get through 2007, I can get through this. That was the year Brit decided to live out the scenario of the girl in her Lucky video, who yearns to break out of her miserable fame cage. Except in the video Britney was still in the kind of shape where she could rock a school uniform, whereas when the actual meltdown happened, she had ballooned and shaved her head. A car was attacked with an umbrella. There were those awful boyfriends. We thought she’d never mime again. But like Lindsay it’s been a happy ending, between American Idol, Vegas and her enduring brand. What do you think Britney made last year? $49m. Let that sink in.
THE COREYS
“How many of these boys are called Corey?” an incredulous Homer Simpson once asked Lisa Simpson as he flicked through her teen magazine. “Seven!” she calls out. But while there are more other, minor Coreys, the biggies were Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, who both appeared in many movies together, notably The Lost Boys, which is still brilliant. They had many problems — addiction (Haim), abuse (Feldman) and a belief in some wild conspiracy theories (also Feldman). But their more overarching problem was that nobody could ever remember which was which. Even after Corey Haim tragically died a few years ago, the news emerged that the number one Google search for that day had actually been: Corey Feldman. Even in death we couldn’t get it right.