Lindsay Lohan: Socialite mother of British DJ feared her relationship- with 'psychotic' actress was heading for tragedy

By Angella Johnson

PUBLISHED: 20:15 EST, 16 February 2013 | UPDATED: 06:58 EST, 17 February 2013

Hand in hand: Lindsay Lohan and former girlfriend Samantha Ronson are pictured in New York in 2008 .

Hand in hand: Lindsay Lohan and former girlfriend Samantha Ronson are pictured in New York in 2008 . Ann Dexter-Jones, Ms Ronson's mother, intervened in the relationship

The lavish VIP after-party to mark the opening of Dubais latest luxury hotel, The Atlantis, was in full swing in the seven-room suite reserved for talk-show billionaire Oprah Winfrey.

As celebrity guests, including Kylie Minogue, actress Mischa Barton and designers Mary-Kate Olsen and Matthew Williamson, drank premium champagne and nibbled artfully created canapes, Ann Dexter-Jones watched in disbelief as actress Lindsay Lohan threw an extraordinary, childish tantrum.

It was the moment she knew that she had to intervene in her daughter Samantha Ronsons romance with the troubled Hollywood star.

Lohan had been dating Samantha Anns eldest daughter and a successful British DJ who was playing at the 1,539-room resorts grand opening celebration.

Suddenly, without any warning, Lindsay flung herself on to the thick carpet and started to roll around screaming like a child, said Ann, as she recalled the bizarre scene that so shocked her four years ago.

It seemed she was upset that people, including Samantha, were not paying her enough attention.To my mind, it was classic psychotic behaviour. I took Lindsay aside and told her not to make a spectacle of herself. She was clearly ou! t of control and spoiling for a fight.

Earlier in the evening, Samantha and Lohan were reported to have been seen arguing loudly.The actress the quintessential Hollywood wild child has long been better known for her drug taking, car-crash relationships and multiple arrests rather than her acting work.

As a child, her dramatic combination of red hair, green eyes and cute freckles won her starring roles in hit films The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday and teen classic Mean Girls. By the age of 18, she had a 20million fortune and a bright future. But drugs and alcohol would wreak havoc on a promising career.

Even before the Dubai incident, Ann, the British-born former wife of guitarist Mick Jones from rock band Foreigner, was apprehensive about Samanthas involvement with Lohan.

She said: I know stuff, but I dont want to go into it. I just knew that it was not a good place for my child to be, but sometimes a parents objection only makes it more exciting.

When I saw for myself just how volatile Lohan was, I realised that the relationship was not healthy.

The morning after her tantrum and believe me, that was not the worst of it I told them both that I could no longer support them as a couple, that I no longer approved of them being together and that Lindsay was no longer welcome in my home.

Ann calls it tough love. Certainly, it went against the natural instincts of a woman famed as a legendary hostess in the rock world.

Guests at her star-studded parties in the family home in New York have included David Bowie, Pauland Linda McCartney, Yoko Ono, Michael Douglas and Al Pacino to name but a few.

Back in London last week, Ann decided she should set matters straight about the demise of one of Hollywoods most notorious relationships.

Trouble brewing: Ann with Samantha and Lohan in Dubai on the night the actress was told s! he was no! longer part of the family

Trouble brewing: Ann with Samantha and Lohan in Dubai on the night the actress was told she was no longer part of the family

Lohan, who is now 26, last year described her affair with 35-year- old Samantha as being mutually toxic. Ann, however, says it was Lohans chaotic lifestyle that brought it to a close and that she stepped in because, as a mother, she feared it would end tragically.

A slender figure with a mop of long blonde curly hair and dressed in snug black jeans and a cream cashmere jumper, she said: I saw how much pain my daughter was in and that she was suffering deeply. She is a very Zen person and not used to the kind of turmoil that Lindsay seems to thrive on.

I was seriously anxious about Samanthas safety and wellbeing. I feared a tragedy. It got to a point that I wasnt sleeping very well.

Her husky voice is an attractive mixture of posh Brit overlaid with a mid-Atlantic twang.

I didnt want to interfere because I brought up my children to be strong and independent people from a very early age.

But after the incident in Dubai I knew it was time for me to take a stand and not act as an enabler. Im a pretty blunt person and like to shoot from the hip, so to speak. So, I told them straight to their faces. I said I didnt want to create a social veneer; pretending everything was fine when it clearly wasnt.

Naturally, Samantha did not take it very well, but as a parent Ive never tried to win any popularity contest with my kids.

Ann is the first to admit that in her day she was something of a wild child herself. I was certainly no angel and, back in my time, Id be rolling home from some nightclub or other just when the nanny was getting the kids ready for school.

Even now, in her early 60s, shes a feisty socialiser. She can still be found partying with the likes of P Diddy and Jay-Z, or hanging out with fashion designer Nicole Richie.

And after bringing up five children from two ! marriages! , Ann is now making a name for herself as a jewellery designer. Its time to follow my own dreams, she said. It is something Ive wanted to do for a while, but only now have been able to find the time.

Troubled: Lindsay Lohan is the quintessential Hollywood wild child

Troubled: Lindsay Lohan is the quintessential Hollywood wild child

Her range received enormous publicity before it was even launched after Kate Moss spotted Ann wearing one of her own bracelets at a party. Moss persuaded her friend, Topshop tycoon Sir Philip Green, to buy it for her. He also spent 12,500 on one for his wife.

Ann holds up what looks like a giant watch in black onyx and chunky gold, the hands set permanently to a diamond-studded 12. She describes her line as rock n roll-chic jewels for women and secure men. Harrods has now started selling the collection.

Anns background is upper- middle-class Jewish intellectual. Her father, Frederick Dexter, came to Britain from Vienna before the war. Her fathers uncle was Sir Oscar Deutsch, who founded the Odeon cinema chain. She is also related to the former Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind and the former Home Secretary Leon Brittan.

When Ann was ten, her father moved the family her three older brothers and a younger sister to Australia. On the boat crossing, Anns mother Judith became seriously ill with ulcerative colitis and died not long afterwards.

Over the following years, Anns father continued to move the family from country to country. She attended 14 different elementary and secondary schools and three different colleges.

Her rootless existence ended when she settled in London in 1972 and found a job as an assistant in the Aga Khans office.

For the glamorous but unsettled Ann, a conventional life was never on the cards, and her two marriages introduced her to the n lifesty! le.

The first was to Laurence Ronson, manager of pop band Bucks Fizz and a man whose tycoon brother Gerald was jailed for his involvement in the Guinness share-trading fraud of the Eighties.

Ann and Ronson have three children: Mark, 37 a world-famous recording artist and Grammy-winning music producer who has worked with stars including Amy Winehouse and Adele and twin daughters Samantha and Charlotte, a fashion designer.

Laurence and Ann were regulars on the Seventies London rock scene. She said: I met countless music legends, many of whom are still friends. I remember one dinner, at our home in St Johns Wood, when Marks schoolteacher whispered to me that she thought another guest resembled Mick Jagger. I didnt have the heart to tell her that it was the man himself.

The Ronsons divorced in the early Eighties after eight years, and then Ann met Jones at a party. It was, on his part at least, a case of love at first sight. She, however, was not looking to get involved. But he wooed her by sending orchids every day for two months and wrote the Foreigner anthem I Want To Know What Love Is with her in mind.

They moved the family to New York in the mid-Eighties and became leading lights of the Manhattan social scene.

Ann and Mick had two children of their own, Alexander and Annabelle, and they all lived in a five-storey house with Picassos on the wall.

Yoko Ono was a neighbour, as were Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Steve Jobs, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Robin Williams once tucked Mark up in bed and Ann recalls that Paul McCartney once saved Marks life.

We were having a picnic on the beach at the Hamptons with Lindas family when Mark was about eight and he was swept up by a huge wave. Paul dived in and pulled him out, while I stood rooted in shock, she recalled.

Despite their privileged star-strewn lives, Ann insisted that her children learned the value of money. While their friends were spending on their own credit cards, they had to get jobs to ea! rn extra ! pocket money, and nobody was allowed to date until the age of 16, she said.

They worked as interns on magazines, in the local coffee shops and in restaurants.

Mark started to host school parties in hotel rooms to make extra money. It wasnt exactly glamorous or profitable, but he has been surrounded by music his entire life and it was probably his first big passion.

When he was seven, he was quizzing Keith Richards about chords and compositions. Keith Moon of The Who also gave him drum lessons as a toddler.

Ann and Mick divorced in 2007. It was messy, but Im glad to say that we are now very good friends.

She is proud of the way her children turned out. Considering the temptations they must have been exposed to, they are cool and super-talented, without any hint of drama or scandal, she says.

The unspoken words until Lohan came into their lives seem to hang in the air.

While Samantha is now reported to be in a healthy relationship with music producer David Fosters daughter, the actress/writer Erin Foster, Lohan remains on a path of self-destruction.

She has been arrested six times, checked into rehab five times, been jailed, completed 536 hours of community service and will soon be back inside for parole violations.

Ive not come across her since I backed off, says Ann, doing nothing to hide her relief. All I shall say is that I wish her well, because I have no problems with her any more.