Can Aliana Lohan Escape Her Sister's Shadow?

"Aliana definitely doesn’t want to breathe life into Lindsay’s personal happenings." This is Michael Lohan Jr. politely declining a request for a follow-up interview with his younger sister Aliana. I’d spoken to her at a coffee shop in Los Angeles a week prior to Lindsay’s 30th birthday extravaganza in Mykonos, Greece. But a lot had happened since then: Lindsay and her Russian business heir fiancé Egor Tarabasov broke up, Michael Lohan Sr. told tabloids Lindsay was pregnant (she’s not), and Lindsay accused Egor of physically attacking her. Of course, none of those incidents have anything to do with Aliana’s music career, which she’s determined to launch once and for all later this year — and, yet, they have everything to do with it. When you’re the sibling of one of the world’s most famous ingénues-turned-cautionary-tales, how do you survive both her spotlight and her shadow? How do you make it in Hollywood yourself?

That’s what I’m trying to figure out when I meet Aliana at Verve in June. "I’m so sorry I’m late!" she says when she arrives. I look at my phone; she’s five minutes early. Her punctuality aside, Aliana is very much a Lohan. She has the throaty voice, the freckles, and it isn’t long before she mentions that her mom Dina is one of her best friends ("my strength"). In my memory, she was still a tween, frozen at the peak of Lindsay’s fame, accompanying her sister on the red carpet, starring in Lindsay’s "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)" music video, and nervously chatting with David Letterman to promote her short-lived reality show Living Lohan, when she was just 14 and still going by Ali. But here she is now, a 22-year-old woman making another go of it in music. "This is what I wanted to do since I was 8 years old," she says.

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She moved to L.A. from New York in early May, and has since spent her days in a recording studio with a writing partner (whose name she’s reluctant to share until the album’s complete) and working with a producer to nail down her sound, which she describes as "Western emo," citing Nancy Sinatra and Johnny Cash as inspirations. This new EP won’t be Aliana’s musical debut: She was 10 when she recorded her first album, Lohan Holiday. For many people trying to launch a music career, having songs called "I Like Christmas" and "Santa’s Reindeer Ride" available to stream on Spotify would be mortifying. But Aliana congenially shuts me down when I suggest as much. "I believe everything happens for a reason," she says. "Like, everything."

Here’s what you need to know about Aliana: Blanket positivity is her general M.O. If I turned our conversation into a word cloud, "blessed" and "grateful" would be prominently featured; so would the phrase "on my path." "I’ve never done therapy in my entire life," she says when I ask. "Nothing against therapists. I think it’s extraordinary what they do for people. I just, I have a deep sense of faith and spirituality, so I think that’s my grounding." Buddhism and meditation are "a big part" of her life. And she mentions her affinity for Wayne Dyer, the spiritual self-help guru who wrote Change Your Thoughts — Change Your Life. ("My mom was like, ’Read this book, it’s amazing, you’ll love it,’" she says.) Even when she peripherally acknowledges the difficulties of growing up Lohan, she is quick to put a gracious spin on it. "It’s just crazy how things can get out, and be twisted and completely fabricated," she says. "That was mind-blowing to me." She’s vague and tends to backpedal on anything that might be negatively misconstrued, suggesting a general wariness of the media. When I mention the live video chat Lindsay did with fans just days before our meeting — during which Lindsay said she’s holding off on releasing new music because "as much as I want to sing every day, I don’t want my sister to hate me" — Aliana gasps. "I think some things were twisted around," she says, taking a sip of her iced coffee.

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"Being born in a family that’s public, that’s just been my life," she says. "I’ve never gone out of my way for attention." (When I bring up her sister in the first place, she suggests that we move to a more secluded table, blaming the sun that’s started to beat down on us.) The only time in recent memory she seems to have knowingly courted headlines was in December 2015, after Jennifer Lawrence made a joke about her busy filming schedule on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert: "I get Lindsay Lohan-grade exhaustion but without any drugs or alcohol," she said. Aliana responded with a pointed tweet ("I never breathe life into negativity but I stand by my family. Disappointed in Jennifer Lawrence. You lost a fan"). "That was literally something that came over me where I was like, ’You know what, that’s my sister. I gotta say something,’" she explains. "At first, I was like, ’Shit. Are people gonna jump on this?’ I’m like, ’You know what? It’s OK.’ Because I just wanted her to know that you should stand up for other women, you should help people and not put them down, ever." That drama aside, she says, "I’m a very focused person. All my family knows, ’Aliana’s singing.’"

Her first break in music came at the hands of a producer named Chris Christian, who ran into Dina Lohan, whom he knew through his friend Robert Kardashian (yes), at the Four Seasons swimming pool in Beverly Hills in 2006. Chris was hoping Lindsay, who was at the peak of her record career at the time, would cut a holiday album for his new media company. Her schedule was packed with movie obligations, but Dina told him that 10-year-old Aliana, who was swimming in the pool nearby, could sing, and asked if he wanted to work with her instead. "Ali swam over and Dina said, ’Hey, you wanna make a Christmas album?’" Chris recounts over the phone. "Ali goes, ’Sure!’ And then she swam off. One of the more unique courting artists deals that I’ve ever been involved in." Chris, whose history in the music business dates back to the ’70s, when he worked with Elvis Presley, has nothing but fond memories to share of the experience. "She had a good voice and she could sing," he says, comparing her "gravelly" tone to that of Elvis himself. "But she was more interested in going back in the lobby and continuing to play her video games on the phone," he adds with a laugh.

Music took a backseat to modeling for Aliana in the years that followed. She’d booked campaigns on and off throughout her childhood (she made an adorable appearance with Lindsay in this Calvin Klein ad), but at 17, she moved to South Korea for eight months to model full time. "I was modeling using just my first name in the beginning — I didn’t want to be taken a different way," she tells me. "When I was there, I was alone, so I was just getting to experience another place around the world and really taking that in. I was like, ’Wow. This is cool’ — free bird." When I ask later if she ever did the party thing, her emphatic frown says it all. "Never," she says, shaking her head. "Wasn’t for me. I’ve never done drugs or anything, thank god. I did not like that scene."

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In some respects, Aliana seems older than her 22 years — something she says people always tell her. But she’s got a childlike enthusiasm too, and a nervous, goofy streak. She affects funny voices and does an Elvis impression ("Thankyouverymuch") when I call her choice of words ("music just ignites my soul") poetic. When she pulls her hair back, I can see the tiny music note tattooed behind her left ear, and the star tattoo on her wrist matches ones that both Dina and Lindsay have too. As frustrating as her willful positive-thinking is at times — surely you have more to say about the downside of fame, Aliana Lohan! — I can’t help but marvel at her sunny disposition. By the end of our time together, I even find I’ve adopted it.

Cut to the inside of my shitty 2003 Honda CR-V, where Aliana has managed to overlook my assorted driving detritus — Lara bar wrappers, empty iced coffee cups, half-filled water bottles — and notice only my collection of ’90s tapes. "Oh my god, you play cassettes?" she says, hopping into the passenger side. We’re headed to a housing project in Watts; Aliana has spent most of her Saturdays there volunteering for a youth mentoring program run by a family friend, and we’re taking my car at her request. ("We probably shouldn’t roll up in a Mercedes," she says, calling the driver of the waiting luxury car to tell him we no longer need his service.) "I have to Snapchat this," she says, panning her iPhone over my collection. She pops Willie Nelson’s greatest hits into the tape player and we sing along with the windows down.

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When we arrive at the rec center, the outside area is in full swing. The Bee Gees’ "Staying Alive" blasts from a portable speaker, a tug-of-war game is just getting started, and a picnic table is cluttered with tiny wooden birdhouses that a handful of kids are painting and personalizing. Aliana gets right in the fray; before long, a girl named Trinity is correcting her dabbing technique. "Like this," she says, her missing front teeth causing a slight lisp. These kids don’t know who Aliana is, and although I haven’t totally managed to answer my original question — how will Aliana carve out a name for herself when her name already comes with so much baggage? — it’s clear the anonymity is a relief. I think about something she mentioned earlier, about how any hardships she’s faced have only allowed her to be of service to other people. "I’m not scared of anything," she said. "I think it’s because I’ve just seen so much and been public at such a young age. Really, I’m like Iron Woman."

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