Lindsay Lohan was ‘racially profiled’ for wearing headscarf

The star appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain last Tuesday, and described an incident when an airport official allegedly asked her to take off the scarf while travelling to New York. She told the show’s presenters Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid, “I got stopped recently and was racially profiled. She opened my passport, saw ‘Lindsay Lohan’ and immediately started apologising.” “But then said ‘take off your headscarf’,” she added. Lohan also revealed in the show that the incident occurred to her while she was returning from Turkey, where she had recently met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and seven-year-old Syrian girl Bana al-Abed. The Mean Girls actress said she did not bother to take off her scarf and added, “What scared me was how would another woman who doesn’t feel comfortable taking off her headscarf feel? I was kind of in shock.” However, British travel regulations state: “If you’re wearing headgear for religious or cultural reasons, you can ask for it to be checked using a hand-held scanner so you don’t have to remove it.” In the show, Lohan was also asked about rumours of her conversion to Islam. Lohan replied that she was indecisive, but “out of respect to certain countries that I go to, I feel more comfortable acting the same as the other women. That’s just a personal respect issue for me.”