Lindsay Lohan may soon be on her way to prison, but her legal woes are turning into her biggest payday in years. Bids for the troubled starlet’s pre- and post-prison interview are now coming in at over $500,000.
Major TV networks — which technically don’t pay for interviews but often get around that by paying for pictures — are putting in bids by joining forces with weekly magazines to score the big jailhouse chat.
Meanwhile, an increasingly desperate Lohan was close to signing lawyer Robert Shapiro, who defended OJ Simpson in his murder trial, in a bid to overturn her 90-day sentence, which is to start July 20.
A source told Page Six, “The irony is Lindsay is in demand. The bidding is over $500,000 for the rights to the pre-jail interview, the prison diary and the first chat when she is released.
“But Lindsay is still convinced she’ll get a reduced term — even if she has to go to rehab afterwards for longer. She has spoken to a number of lawyers over the weekend. She’s even seeing a psychic for guidance.”
On Saturday, Lohan met with Chicago-based lawyer Stuart V. Goldberg, who told us, “Her life is a perfect storm. I think she is a wounded child. She is very fractured. She is overwhelmed. She doesn’t seem to have full awareness of what’s going to befall her. No client recognizes the gravity of the situation until they hear those bars close. You have to numb yourself to exist under the gaze of 3 billion eyes every day.”
Goldberg said he advised Lohan to move out of Los Angeles, “away from bad company, and to somewhere like New York or Chicago, where she’d have a better chance at complying with her probation.”
But he said, “I feel she would be better served by a local attorney, and I think she’ll go with Robert Shapiro.” Shapiro’s office did not return calls last night. Mike Heller, who is negotiating some media offers for Lohan, told us there was “huge interest” but declined to comment further.