Brothel Girl Rescuing Michael Lohan: Ronson is Rude & Vile, Dina & I Get Along
The last handful of years have been rough for Michael Lohan. Today, however, he says he is on a positive track. He claims to be helping the homeless and rescuing girls from brothels. On April 3rd, the father of Lindsay Lohan will step into the ring in Philadelphia vs. a radio DJ, for charity.
He admits his relationship with Lindsay is strained owing to his disapproval of her girlfriend, Samantha Ronson. He paints a picture of Ronson as a rude, vile, opportunistic, former junkie whose nightclub DJ gigs have gone from under $5000 to $25,000, if Lindsay shows up.
Lindsay’s dad blames himself for a lot of his famous daughter’s trials and tribulations. Through it all, though, he says he’s made peace with ex-wife Dina, who was profiled with Lindsay’s brothers and sisters on Living Lohan in 2008. Michael makes it clear that he’ll always be there for Lindsay.
Listen to the Michael Lohan CYInterview:
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Chris Yandek: On April 3rd, you’re going to get into the ring vs. a radio personality. Why did you want to do this?
Michael Lohan: “Actually, I was roped into it. Actually, no, I like to do a lot of things for charity. Damon Feldman has a great organization with the celebrity boxing for charity. There is an officer in Philadelphia who was only on the job for five years and he was killed in the line of duty. His wife was five months pregnant and Damon told me the story and told me that a good portion of the proceeds is going to this woman and the widow and I said I am all in.
It’s helping people and that’s all I really care about is helping other people and at the risk of getting a few jabs or shots it’s nothing I am a stranger to especially with the press and all the rumors and lies that are out there. What am I gonna do?”
CY: What is your boxing or athletic background?
ML: “I really don’t have a background in boxing. I played lacrosse, hockey and football all my life through all my years of high school and even college. Then I got into martial arts. Martial arts is just a means of controlling ourselves and it’s more a defensive thing. I have some training there and I really enjoyed it so I decided let me give it a shot in the ring.”
CY: What kind of preparation are you putting in for this?
ML: “I was training for quite a while. I’ve been on the road now for two weeks. I’ve been in like six or seven cities with business. I’ve been going to the gyms in the hotel. I am in the Palms Casino right now and they have a great gym here so I’ve been going here. I am gonna take the next week and just I am just gonna train, box…box…box, lift…lift…lift and get ready.”
CY: Some people are going to say he’s just doing this to keep his name out there. What do you say to those people?
ML: “They can say whatever they want to say. I was asked to do this. I didn’t ask to do it. People don’t know what I’m doing in my private life. For God sake I am speaking before 150 members of Congress and the Senate at Capital Hill. I go on mission trips. We go into brothels, and retrieve girls, and put them into safe homes. People don’t know those things. I feed the homeless. I do so much to help people but that’s between God and me. I don’t have to be specific about the things that are happening in my life and have happened for so long.
People are always going to say what they want to say and try to bring someone down and if I can help people. I am Lindsay’s dad and it’s because of Lindsay that I have a name. I know that, but if God wants me to use that even if it was in a negative context to help people then I will.”
CY: What are some of the biggest misconceptions about you? Why do you think the press likes to hammer you?
ML: “It happens right up until today because they don’t like to see people in the lime light at all. When they do they try to bring them down. They say horrible things about everybody out there, everyone. They take good situations and make them bad because I was in prison and I beat my brother in law up and I don’t like to say this but for good reason. I shouldn’t have done that, but when someone’s in your backyard doing drugs at your son’s communion party and then you tell him to leave and he comes after you what are you going to do?
Am I a bad guy? How many people went out there and have gotten a DWI? How many people have gotten in a car after they were drinking? I made the wrong choices and I paid the price for it. Other people should man up to it themselves. I am just tired of people making false allegations just to make themselves feel well or to benefit themselves. I just don’t like people that use other people.
I am sorry but it’s the same situation with Samantha and Lindsay. I don’t even really want to get into it now but I am a father first. I love my kids. People will continue to come out of the wood work to bring us down when good things are happening in our life. I don’t know. When people feel slighted they have their own way of doing things.”
CY: Why do you believe Samantha Ronson is a bad influence on Lindsay and why her relationship should end with her?
ML: “Come on? Is everyone so blind? Do we have to be Einstein to figure this out? Samantha going to clubs and bring Lindsay along. Let’s take a step back. Lindsay gets out of Cirque Lodge. She’s doing really well. Prior to Cirque Lodge what was the last picture you saw? Samantha Ronson with Lindsay passed out in her car and it is a fact Samantha staged that to make money for that photo. That was a photo opp. I know that for a fact.
The photographers called me, so did the news agency. Lindsay gets out of Cirque Lodge. She’s doing really well. Labor Pains is all set up. She’s going to go and do the movie and I’m on the set with her and everything is back on track and then who comes back into picture? Samantha Ronson. What has ever happened ever since then?
Are there DJ gigs? Any DJ gigs where there is a huge blow up or a fight? I mean it’s chaos. It’s toxic. To take it a step further, Samantha was making less than $5,000 a gig when she was DJing. Now with Lindsay in her contract or if Lindsay shows up she gets $25,000.
Why do you think Samantha doesn’t want to cut Lindsay loose? Why do you think the Ronsons aren’t pushing Samantha to leave Lindsay? Because they want their daughter to make the money. If you want to talk about riding on coattails, I mean Samantha’s mother, her brothers, and even her and her sister are riding on their father’s coattail.
CY: Maybe you wish you were getting into the ring with another DJ?
ML: “I’ve already made that announcement, that challenge so to speak. I don’t think he’d have the manhood to get in the ring with me.”
CY: Maybe with one arm tied behind your back to make it fair?
ML: “(Laughs.) I don’t know about that. It’s human nature when you have something out for somebody. I don’t approve of what the Ronson’s have done. Mark has made some off color comments too. He even said he’d beat my butt. So you know what? Put your money where your mouth is bud.”
CY: Is Ms. Ronson an aider of bad behavior for your daughter when it comes to drugs, substance abuse, anything else? Is it just the fact she’s not a positive influence on your daughter?
ML: “I think we all know Samantha was a junkie for a long time. Look at her now. I mean just look at her. Look at the way she acts and behaves. Look at every time someone’s passing her and the press try to take a picture she gives them the middle finger. She’s rude. She’s vile. She really is. I don’t know. She’s just a dark…dark person.”
CY: Why does the press focus so much on her compared to other actresses of her twenty something age group?
ML: “Because Lindsay has so much potential. Let’s face it, Lindsay was named the biggest star in Hollywood when she was at the pinnacle of her career and that was at a very young age. She accomplished so much in a short amount of time and it’s a shame that she’s just the wrong people, places, and things got involved in her life. People came out of the wood work and they just started, tried to leach off of her.
I am sorry but I’m her dad. I never took a red cent from her. When I saw everyone else doing what they were doing and how they were draining her in one way or another I wouldn’t have it. Unfortunately some of those people were my own brother in laws, Dina, my ex wife’s brothers. Look, proof is in the pudding.
The one brother after everything happened and all the allegations he made about me, he got nailed with drugs in his car, a crack pipe, and he got a DWI. The other brother that started the big problems for me is now in jail, federal prison for defrauding the 9/11 victim’s fund of over a million dollars. Are these the kind of people that you’d want involved in your daughter’s career?”
CY: I wouldn’t want them around my daughter in general if I were you. Let alone if my daughter was a famous celebrity.
ML: “Yeah. I agree 100 percent.”
CY: So what is your relationship like currently with her [Lindsay]?
ML: “I can’t really get into our communication or anything. Of course it’s stressed. Of course it’s going to be stressed because I keep commenting about Samantha. But you know what? Like I said before, I am a father first at the risk of being distant from my daughter or whatever at times. I know Lindsay may get annoyed at me at times now or angry, but at the end of the day she’s gonna thank me like she has in the past.”
CY: I know that you’ve been fighting in many legal proceedings with your ex wife to see the other children.
ML: “Oh my relationship with the other kids is fantastic. Even my relationship with Dina is good.”
CY: Really?
ML: “Oh yeah.”
CY: Really?
ML: “Yeah. We get along very well.”
CY: It seems like the press plays up that you totally can’t stand each other?
ML: “Oh come on. I can get on the phone with Dina now and we’ll laugh so hard and tears will come out of our eyes.”
CY: Any reason in particular why you weren’t included on the reality show?
ML: “As a matter of fact, from what I heard, when they were renewing the season they wanted me on the show or they weren’t gonna renew it. I guess because someone didn’t want me on they canceled the show.”
CY: You would just totally think that you were in these bitter divorce fights, these hearings. You couldn’t see your kids.
ML: “We were for a period of time. We got by that. As a matter of fact, I wrote the treatment for that entire show as a way to avoid a divorce trial. I said for once let’s show how you can get through a divorce without going through the courts where you either break up or you make up. It was supposed to be calling Living Lohan: Over or Starting Over. That was the concept and platform for the show.”
CY: How much blame do you put on yourself for what Lindsay’s troubles have been in the last few years?
ML: “If I wasn’t honest I could try to avoid that, do a song and dance. I accept a lot of the responsibility. I am one of her parents. I certainly hold myself accountable for my part, making the wrong choices that I did and being put in a position like it was away from my kids. It’s unfortunate but I can’t change that. Can I try to make it better? Absolutely!
A part of making it better is that my daughter is surrounded by the right people, there is not people that are gonna hurt her. Lindsay may be 22 but she’s very young at heart. Some of the weakest times and when she’s vulnerable, people take advantage of that vulnerability. They manipulate her. You know what? I am not one of those people. I am not gonna do that. You don’t hear me kissing any butt to be on Lindsay’s good side. I do things because I want her better.”
CY: What does your daughter need?
ML: “She needs time away from Samantha. She needs to just go somewhere, relax, do all the healthy things that she can, maybe a spa or something. Just get back into herself and into her trait. The path she was on when she was doing so well and just rebuild with the right people, the right places and things. She needs both of her parents there for her. There is a lot of hurt from not having us both there. Even her song Confessions of a Broken Heart Daughter to Father, it says it all. Just read the words. Don’t watch the video which was totally ridiculous but read the words.”
CY: As far as any of the accusations that have been made towards you in recent months, years, is there anything you’d like to clear up?
ML: “There’s still things that’ll continue to come out and people will do things. You go through relationships. You break up with people. They feel slighted and they come out and start rumors. They try to blackmail you. It’s been done before with that woman in Montana and even again now, but I won’t get into it. It’s horrible. People are always out to try to hurt someone else or get money or if they don’t get what they want or if they feel like they’re hurt then they’re going to try I hate to say it, screw you any way they can.”
CY: Is there part of you that wishes you weren’t in the public eye?
ML: “Oh yes. Definitely! I wish I could have my life back. You know what? It is what it is. If I have to use the media as a vehicle to help someone or save my kids I will. Other than that, the good things I do in my life, I really don’t care whether people know it or not that’s between God and me and the people I help.”
CY: How hard is it being a celebrity parent?
ML: “It’s not as hard on us as it is on the kids. I really could care less about how hard it is on me. I really don’t consider it that hard. I consider it hard just being a parent these days. You have your child in the lime light like they are and have people beat them up. It’s not hard, it’s just hurtful. It’s more emotional than physical. It’s very trying to see your kids go through this.”
CY: Rihanna had some issues with domestic abuse and it seemed like her parents didn’t do enough. When you see something like that happen to a fellow twenty something star, you don’t see the parents involved, is it just surprising?
ML: “Yes it is. Absolutely! If that was me I would definitely do something. Like I said, you don’t know what happened. I’ve been involved in situations like that where people said I was involved with fights or I hit Dina or other situations and people just pick up on it and they run with it. They lie. We actually saw pictures of what happened to Rihanna and that’s very unfortunate. A lot of things we have to take everything with a grain of salt. We can’t judge anybody and we have to know all the facts before we decide for ourselves if we think the person is right or wrong.”
CY: And much of your life the facts have seem to not come out?
ML: “Absolutely! And that’s the problem. I like doing these kinds of shows because people are hearing both sides of the story and it’s fair. But when you read articles and people come out and make complaints and this and that it’s all one sided. It’s all so one sided.”
CY: Finally, what efforts are you going to make with Lindsay to possibly get her away from Ms. Ronson? Do you feel like you have to sit back and hope she makes the right decision?
ML: “A number of my friends like the Baldwins, Danny and Steven who have been fantastic, have tried to talk some sense into her. Lindsay’s attorneys are fantastic people, Blair Berk and Shawn Holley Chapman have been unbelievable. I give them all the credit in the world. Other than that, there is not much more I can do other than be a resounding voice in Lindsay’s head reminding her to stay away and just get around the right people. Just rid herself of the wrong, cut that cancer out, and just fill yourself with the right things and people and just grow.”
Michael Lohan fights “Q” 102s Rocco for the CBF Middleweight Championship on April 3rd at the Philadelphia Airport Ramada, 76 Industrial Hwy in Essington, PA.
You can purchase tickets and find out more information at http://www.celebrityboxing.tv.
You can order a pay perview of the event at http://www.iclips.net.
Celebrity Boxing is partnering with Smoking Everywhere for this event. You can check them out at http://www.smokingeverywhere.com