Lindsay Lohan Slams the U.S. and Lavishes Praise on Erdogan and Quran

The ‘Mean Girls’ star gave a bizarre interview on Turkish TV celebrating Erdogan’s uncompromising crackdown while claiming there was less freedom to express herself in the U.S.

Lindsay Lohan has taken to complex international politics in a big way recently, what with her Brexit rants and a recent visit to a refugee camp for displaced Syrians, where she was pictured wearing a headscarf.

Now, it emerges, she is a major fan of Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After successfully putting down a coup attempt earlier this year, Turkey’s president has arrested, sacked, and imprisoned tens of thousands of public-sector workers, ordered the closure of thousands of private schools and charities, and stands accused of abandoning the rule of law in favor of an authoritarian crackdown that has involved holding hundreds of arrested soldiers naked in gyms.

In an extraordinary interview undertaken by Lohan on the Turkish TV network Haberturk—which is hugely pro-Erdogan and in 2013-14 barely covered the protests that rocked the nation—Lohan, with a glazed look, praised Erdogan, (who is now cozying up to Vladimir Putin) and described how she admires and respects him.

Demonstrating the wisdom of the old adage that Hollywood stars should stay out of international politics, Lohan told her interviewer that she first became interested in the refugee crisis, “When the coup happened, just seeing the whole country stand up for each other, that was really emotional for me, all these people in one place, that people were so afraid of, all supporting each other.”

It seems an extraordinary non-sequitur that a disputed and controversial coup attempt in Turkey could get one thinking about refugees in Syria, and there’s an atmosphere of nervousness pervading the studio as Lohan ploughs on. “Erdogan did really well and his people, really admiring and respecting him, as the first elected president. This is a big deal,” she said.

The lines appeared to have been suggested if not actually scripted (Lohan reveals inadvertently in this interview that perhaps she is not that great an actor after all).

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“In Turkey you have free will as a woman, it’s amazing here, you can do what you want and it’s accepted, whereas I am in America and I am holding the Koran and I am the devil.”

Lohan wraps up by singing the praises of Turkey one more time, saying, “You have to acknowledge the good parts of a place that people think is so bad. They think it’s so dangerous. We are sitting in a very nice place so it’s time we start recognizing the truth and doing something.”