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'Living Lohan' becomes reality as Dina Lohan dishes on show

BY VERNE GAY | verne.gay@newsday.com

4:30 PM EDT, May 15, 2008

In this May 8, 2007 file photo, Dina Lohan, mother of actress Lindsay Lohan, arrives for the premiere of "Georgia Rule," in New York. (AP Photo)

Why, why, WHY? You're the mother of one of the most hounded people on the planet ( Lindsay Lohan, or Lilo, to her hounders). And yet here you are: Enabling your 14-year-old daughter, Ali, to pursue a similar white-hot career track and, for added measure, you have just opened up your house in North Merrick to a TV network so that the rest of the world can look inside.

Funny how the same question always seems to come up with Dina Lohan, in Manhattan on Thursday to field questions from some of those same paparazzi who have her life so (avowedly) miserable and to promote her eight-part E! show, "Living Lohan," that bows Memorial Day.

And - you'll won't be surprised to learn - she has an answer.

"Initially if you'd asked me two years ago, 'Would we do something like this,' it would definitely be a no. I never even thought reality [TV] would be existence now. But there are so many rumors about us and I feel that we're in the power seat right now so that I'm able as a mom to say - this is our life, check us out and move on so we can be normal."

Which, naturally, begs another question. What is the meaning of "normal" in the context of any family with the last name "Lohan?"

"We live a normal existence in suburbia," she says. "I do the food shopping, the laundry. There is so much sensationalism out there and people are so obsessed with celebrity. This doesn't consume us. It really doesn't and by showing our life, we'll show that I don't get up and crack the whip and say, 'wake up Ali and go be a star."

You almost don't even have to ask Lohan about the rumors; they hang about her, like an impenetrable fog. Of her other daughter's well-publicized drug and alcohol problems, she says, "I don't mean to go in depth with that, but with any family across the country, it's a problem. It would happen no matter where you are or what business you're in, and, God willing, people learn from their mistakes." Of Lindsay, she says she's doing "great."

Another one of those annoying "why" questions: Why tempt fate a second time with your youngest daughter ("Living Lohan" also follows Mom and Ali to Las Vegas, where the 14-year-old aspiring singer records another album.)

"If I told Ali, 'You're a singer and you want to be an artist but you can't because [the paparazzi] are going to trip you up.' But that's with any career. It's like me telling my son, you can't play lacrosse because you're going to get hurt."

Ali, who was also on Thursday's press junket, does - for the record - seem like a nice, normal 14-year-old who genuinely loves her mother. (She would often glance at her mom while answering questions.)

"She's our manager and like any other mother in the world she's trying to help her kids fulfill their dreams," she said. "I just hate it when people twist that and make her into some kind of crazy backstage mom. She's a mom like anybody else and I want people to know that she's the greatest mom in the world."