It would seem a little sad if Tina Fey was able to pull off a Mean Girls “reboot” without having at least one of the integral players involved, which is why Linsday Lohan’s brief cameo in the movie musical was a nice callback to the original. And while, in theory, it would be nice to assume Lohan would do it out of the kindness of her heart, it turns out she made bank off of appearing in the new movie. And none for Gretchen Wieners, it seems.
According to Variety, Lohan’s half-day of work on the reboot earned her $500,000. Lohan appeared in the film as the judge of the Mathletes competition at the film’s conclusion. She wasn’t the only cameo — Megan Thee Stallion also popped up in a TikTok-style montage, while Emily In Paris’ Ashley Park (who debuted in Mean Girls on Broadway) also had a small role as the French teacher. Get it?! Très Fech!
Even though Lohan has a major payday for her role, the actress was reportedly “disappointed” by one of the movie’s jokes: At one point in the film, Megan Thee Stallion says that “Y2K fire crotch is back,” which could possibly be seen as a dig at Lohan. A source told The Messenger that Lohan was “surprised and taken aback” at the comment when she appeared at the New York premiere of the film.
While the joke was just a quick one-liner, it seemed to be a nod to a 2006 paparazzi video in which actor Brandon Davis, who was tight with Lohan’s ex-friend Paris Hilton, referred to Lohan as a “fire crotch,” among other insults.
Fey, who penned both the 2004 film and the new film, had been open about retiring past jokes that haven’t aged well in the 20 years since the original film premiered. “I was writing in the early 2000s very much based on my experience as a teen in the late ’80s. It’s come to no one’s surprise that jokes have changed,” she told The New York Times. “You don’t poke in the way that you used to poke. Even if your intention was always the same, it’s just not how you do it anymore, which is fine. I very much believe that you can find new ways to do jokes with less accidental shrapnel sideways.” Perhaps we’ll have to see how the “fire crotch” joke lands in 2044.