Lohan ‘racially profiled’ in a headscarf
AMERICAN actress Lindsay Lohan claimed she was “racially profiled” at London’s Heathrow Airport recently while going through a security checkpoint wearing a headscarf.
In an appearance on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday, Lohan told hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid that she was stopped in a security line while travelling from Turkey to the US.
“When I was flying to New York recently, I was wearing (a) headscarf and I got stopped at the airport and racially profiled for the first time in my life,” Lohan, who is white, said.
“She opened my passport and saw ‘Lindsay Lohan’ and started immediately apologising, but then said, ‘Please, but take off your headscarf’.”
A video clip of Lohan’s appearance uploaded by Good Morning Britain appeared to have edited out the mention of her being “racially profiled”.
However, The Sun published a video clip that showed Lohan saying she was racially profiled, and many other outlets reported the quote. The show itself tweeted the quote as well.
Lohan told Morgan and Reid that she complied with the request to remove her headscarf but that the encounter was “jarring”.
“But what scared me was, is that moment, how would another woman who doesn’t feel comfortable taking off her headscarf feel? That was really interesting to me. I mean, I was kind of in shock,” Lohan said.
The 30 year old said she was wearing a headscarf out of “respect” because she was returning from Turkey, where she had met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Lohan in recent months has been speaking out on behalf of Syrian refugees. In January, she travelled to Turkey and met Erdogan as well as Bana Alabed, the seven-year-old Syrian girl who became well known for her tweets from her home in war-ravaged Aleppo.
Bana tweeted last month that she had “a new friend” and shared a Periscope video that she and Lohan had recorded together.
“We want to send to all of the people in Syria and Aleppo suffering and all of the refugees that we are here supporting you, and you can hang on, be strong, just like Bana has, and we’re sending you lots of love and light and blessings,” Lohan said in the video with Bana.
The former child actress, whose troubled personal life has been splashed across tabloids worldwide, has reportedly been “exploring” Islam in recent years.
On Good Morning Britain, Lohan said that learning about different cultures and beliefs is something that “feeds my soul”. She said she reads an English translation of the Qur’an regularly but declined to say whether she was converting to Islam.
Morgan asked her why she was “reluctant” to say either way whether she was “in the process” of converting. “It’s a consideration I have,” Lohan said. “I don’t want to speak on something that I haven’t finished yet.”
Morgan – a staunch defender of President Donald Trump – asked Lohan what she thought of the new US administration.
After some prompting, Lohan said she agreed that the “hysteria” over Trump’s election was “overplayed,” though she did think that the president should stop using Twitter. – The Washington Post