The Mean Girls movie that dropped earlier this year entered and left theaters with fairly little fanfare, but it’s now been quietly edited to remove a line that drew the ire of a member of the cast of the original film in the form of Lindsay Lohan.
It’s no secret Hollywood is unable to resist the urge to milk every single cent out of any piece of intellectual property that’s viewed as profitable, and while no one was really begging for a reimagining of Mean Girls (which was loosely based on the Broadway musical that debuted in 2018), we still got an adaptation that was released in January.
The movie garnered a respectable 70% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and made $106 million on a $36 million budget during its theatrical run. Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprised their original roles and were joined by one of the eponymous Mean Girls courtesy of Lindsay Lohan, who made a cameo near the end of the movie.
However, she was apparently less than thrilled with the final product courtesy of a scene where Megan Thee Stallion deploys the words “fire crotch,” the derogatory term oil heir Brandon Davis used while referring to Lohan in a video that surfaced in 2006 (her rep issued a statement on her behalf that read, “Lindsay was very hurt and disappointed by the reference in the film”).
According to TMZ, it appears the folks behind the new Mean Girls are trying to pretend like that never happened, as the version that’s now available to buy or rent on digital platforms is noticeably absent of the line in question.
The digital version of #MeanGirls has altered Megan The Stallion’s controversial “fire crotch” line after Lindsay Lohan was allegedly hurt by the joke.
The line now ends at “We are going back red” and jumps to her laughing, cutting out “Y2K fire crotch is back.” pic.twitter.com/LDytcHj1SL
— Kristen Maldonado (@kaymaldo) February 21, 2024
It’s hard to imagine there’s going to be a large legion of people mounting an online campaign to #ReleaseTheFireCrotchCut, so while there’s a conversation to be had about the slippery slope that comes with retroactively altering pieces of media, this probably doesn’t need to serve as the onus.