Lindsay Lohan: Single, 'Responsible, Ready to Work'

April 23, 2009 — -- After the DUIs, the rehab stints and the breakup heard 'round the world, Lindsay Lohan wants nothing more than to get back to work.

Today, the much-scrutinized starlet opened up to Ellen DeGeneres about her desire to be taken seriously and her highly-publicized breakup from DJ Samantha Ronson earlier this month.

"I didn't get into this business to be a celebrity on the cover of tabloids and I've been a target and I'm not that interesting," Lohan said in an appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres" show today. "It distracts people, studio heads, everyone and they get nervous. I've been through a lot. I was 19 years old when things happened and I'm ready to work. I'm responsible and I can be on time and I learn from my mistakes."

Lohan, clad in a minidress that highlighted her frail frame, revealed that she was blindsided by the end of her almost year-long relationship with Ronson.

"I had no idea what was going on. I just hadn't seen her in like a week. She like disappeared," she told DeGeneres.

But Lohan, 22, said she and Ronson, 31, "are friends" and they're still talking. She hopes they'll eventually reconcile.

"I'm not looking to be with anyone right now," she told DeGeneres. "I don't need to deal with that. It gets to distracting from everything that I need to focus on. Leaving town, you miss someone too much and you don't want to go sometimes but I really care about Samantha and we'll see what happens. Maybe when were fully in the right place ... and I love her."

Lohan laughed off the reports that Ronson's family sought a restraining order against her in the days following their breakup, saying, "What am I going to do? ... I've never done anything for people to assume I'm dangerous."

She also said she never cheated on Ronson because she doesn't "believe in cheating on someone. ... I watched my father do that to my mother my entire life."

Lohan's father, Michael Lohan, immediately reacted, telling reporters, "While I'm thankful it seems Lindsay is finally taking my advice and presumably is getting her career back on track, it disturbs me that she still continues to take the focus off of herself and accuse me of cheating on her mother when I only did so when Dina and I were separated."

Lohan's Family Rallies as She Attempts Career Comeback

Lohan's family has had a lot to say about her career and relationship with Ronson. Immediately after Lohan announced that she and the DJ were taking a break so she could focus on herself, Michael Lohan told ABCNews.com, "Well thank God."

"I think it's a healthy decision that she take a break and relax and pursue her own career and her own goals," he added. "What they had was very toxic. It had become very toxic. Lindsay doesn't need to keep following Samantha around. She needs to sit down with her parents. She needs the support of both of us to help her along. Lindsay's an emotional person. I want her to get on with her life in the right direction and a healthy way."

"We'd all like to reach out to her," her paternal grandmother, Marilyn Lohan, told People magazine earlier this month. "We're all here for her and we'd love to see her. ... I haven't seen her in over a year. I don't know what happened. I'm heartbroken."

Lohan has stayed largely out of court since pleading guilty to cocaine use and driving under the influence in August 2007.

She has also strayed from the movie industry. Her last film, the 2007 horror flick "I Know Who Killed Me," earned her two Razzie Awards for worst actress. She does, however, retain ad campaigns with brands including Fornarina jeans and Sevin Nyne spray tan, which she promoted on DeGeneres' show.

It doesn't look like she'll rebound with her upcoming film "Labor Pains," in which she plays a woman who fakes a pregnancy to save herself from unemployment.

Instead of hitting the big screen, "Labor Pains" will premiere on ABC Family in July and come out on DVD a month later.

Lohan, who recently told E! News that she wants to have her "own charity, do work overseas [and] be in Oscar-nominated films," once boasted one of the most promising careers in modern-day Hollywood. She charmed as a child star in Disney's 1998 remake of "The Parent Trap" and won critical acclaim in 2004's "Mean Girls."

On "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Lohan said being single has given her time to focus on staging a comeback. She thanked family and friends, including actress Natalie Portman, for their support.

"I feel like I want to get my career back in shape," she said. "There are some shows I'm producing that I'm really excited about. I'm doing a movie in October. ... You know when people are together so much it gets really difficult and you forget who you are because you're more concerned about being with the other person. I think [the breakup has] been really good for me. ... I've had great people surrounding me and I've just been working every single day."