LONDON: Lindsay Lohan, 30, claims she was “racially profiled” while wearing a headscarf at London’s Heathrow Airport.
The actress told a British talk show that she was stopped while traveling to New York.
She said an airport worker “opened my passport and saw ‘Lindsay Lohan’ and started immediately apologizing, but then said: ‘Please take off your headscarf.’“
What scared the Mean Girls star was that moment, how would another woman who doesn’t feel comfortable taking off her headscarf feel? “That was really interesting to me. I was kind of in shock,” she told “Good Morning Britain” on Tuesday.
Speaking to Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid, Lohan said that such an incident happens to her for the first time in her life.
Lohan was returning from Turkey, where she recently met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
She said she wore a headscarf in Turkey out of “personal respect,” initially but then kept it on in order not to be recognized at the Airport.
Lohan, who has been photographed carrying a Qur’an, says she finds “solace” studying the Muslim holy book and other religious texts in addition to meditation. “You can’t just convert to a religion overnight. I just study it, nothing is confirmed yet.
The actress said that she does not want to speak on something she has not finished yet.
Lohan finds the Islamic culture to be close to her. “I feel it’s a like a family,” she said as many of her friends are Arabs. “They have been really good people to me,” she added.
She expressed her desire in learning the Arabic language to be able to discuss Syrian issues. “It calms me. It’s something I’m interested in.”
With input from AP