The latest unfounded rumor about Lindsay Lohan? That she may have become a Muslim.
However, “She has not converted [to Islam],” a representative for the actress told GossipCop.com on Monday.
The rumor began spreading Saturday when Yahoo.com reposted a story that originated with the website International Business Times. The “Mean Girls” star and Syrian-refugee activist, 30, had recently deleted all her Instagram and Twitter posts, and at her Instagram account of 5.7 million followers she placed an Arabic phrase she transliterated as “Alaikum salam” — usually rendered “assalamu alaikum” or “as–salaam alaikum” and meaning “Peace to you.”
The article claimed Lohan had “shocked her millions of followers and fans” by erasing her social-media posts and “is sparking rumors that she may have already converted to Islam due to her Arabic greeting on the photo-sharing platform.”
Lohan’s mother, Dina Lohan, told GossipCop that her daughter had simply gone on a social-media break.
Lohan’s Facebook page retained content as of Monday afternoon, though it had not been updated since Dec. 29, when Lohan had promoted an interview with CNN’s Abu Dhabi bureau in the United Arab Emirates. In that interview, she spoke about her work in Turkey helping to bring attention to the refugees from Syria’s civil war, and said she would be living in Dubai for a time.
In April, when Lohan was photographed in New York carrying a copy of the Koran, a representative said the actress had “a keen interest in the Arabic culture.” That October, in an English-language interview with Turkish TV, she expressed her concern at having been vilified in the United States for having the book, and said, “If [Islam] is something I want to learn, this is . . . my own will.” She also said she was honored when a refugee woman had given her a traditional Muslim headscarf that Lohan was photographed wearing. “She went out of her own way to allow me to be part of her culture. . . . And maybe she only has two, and she gave me one.”
