Saturday, 2 December 2006

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Lindsay Lohan's rep defends her sympathy message

The actress's spokeswoman attacks critics

Lindsay Lohan's publicist is rapping critics of the actress's heartfelt message following the death of her A Prairie Home Companion director Robert Altman.

"It's enough already," spokeswoman Leslie Sloane tells Reuters. "Everybody has got to get a life. People need to get off her back."

In her Nov. 21 e-mail, Lohan, 20, wrote that since learning of Altman's death last week, "I feel as if I've just had the wind knocked out of me and my heart aches. If not only my heart but the heart of Mr. Altman's wife and family and many fellow actors/artists that admire him for his work and love him for making people laugh whenever and however he could."

She concluded the missive: "Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourselves' (12st book) … If I can do anything for those who are in a very hard time right now, as I'm one of them with hearing this news, please take advantage of the fact that I'm just a phone call away. God Bless, peace and love always. Thank You, 'BE ADEQUATE,' Lindsay Lohan."

The message was quickly ridiculed in the press: Andrew Gumbel, in the London Independent, suggested Lohan might have written the letter while "on one of her legendary party benders," and Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison called Lohan's words "alarmingly incoherent," adding, "As for the brilliant Mr. Altman himself, I suspect he might find sardonic comedic potential in all of this."

In defense of her client, Sloane says, "When I got the reports that (Altman) had died, I reached Lindsay on her cell phone, and she had no idea. She was devastated. She started crying. She quickly put something together on her Blackberry.

"Here was a girl who found something special in this man that she felt so close to. And she was completely shocked and blown away that he just died. It was written very quickly, and it was from the heart."