I’m still processing everything that went down during Dina Lohan’s interview with Dr. Phil. It was spectacularly crazy, even by Lohan standards. The interview was so rough, and Dina came across so poorly that I actually considered the idea that Lindsay Lohan got arrested just to help out her mom and change the subject off of Dina. But really, would Lindsay consciously do that? Of course not. More like she acted like a entitled crackhead and she got arrested as a way to bring the focus back on herself after her greedy famewhore mother tried to steal the attention. Anyway, I was fully expecting Dina/Steve Honig to crawl back into a boozy hole for a few months after the Dr. Phil debacle, but Dina now thinks she’s pretty good at the “interview” thing.

If she had to do it again, Dina Lohan might not have allowed her daughter Lindsay to become a child star, she told the Daily News’ Joanna Molloy exclusively Thursday. But the Long Island mother of four said there is only so much she can do now that her famous offspring is a grown woman.

“I’m certainly not making excuses for Lindsay’s behavior,” Dina said. “But she’s a 26-year-old woman.”

But knowing what she knows now about the many child actors who develop substance problems later in life, does she regret putting Lindsay into 60 commercials and “Parent Trap” before she even turned 11?

“I was born into the business,” Dina told The News. “My mother was an entertainer. It was natural. But yes, in the next life, I might not do it.”

Lindsay, who is on probation, was arrested in the wee hours Wednesday after allegedly clipping a man’s leg with a borrowed Porsche at the Dream Hotel and leaving the scene. Alleged victim Jose Rodriguez, who was taken to a hospital, claimed Lindsay “reeked of alcohol.” But police, who confronted her two hours after the accident, didn’t believe she was drunk, nor did they perform Breathalyzer tests on the star, who has been in rehab five times.

The NYPD released surveillance video Thursday bolstering the hit-and-run charge, but also suggesting that Rodriguez’s account of his injuries was exaggerated.

Just days before her daughter’s latest legal run-in, Dina Lohan allowed drinks to be served in front of Lindsay at her 50th birthday party Saturday at Mio Posto in Hicksville, L.I. Lindsay reportedly downed vodka cocktails.

“My 80-year-old mother was there, and she’s Italian-American, and to be able to have a glass of red wine there for her is normal for our family,” Dina said. “Some people who want to quit drinking do it cold turkey and some do it gradually — you want to keep a balance. I don’t know what’s a right way or a wrong way.”

She admitted having special worries about her eldest daughter, who is struggling to get top roles again in Hollywood. “I worry about her being set up,” Dina said ruefully.

She also expressed suspicions about Lindsay’s 25-year-old assistant and constant companion, Gavin Doyle, who she says left the accident scene with Lindsay. Dina noted that Lindsay has gotten into even more trouble than usual this year while with Doyle, including crashing another Porsche into an 18-wheeler in California in June. Cops are still investigating to determine if the two lied about who was driving.

“I have questions about Gavin,” Dina said. “There have been numerous incidents with Lindsay where he has been present. He was with her recently at [millionaire Sam Magid’s] party when she was falsely accused of burglarizing jewelry. It’s all very sketchy.”

Dina says that at 50, she doesn’t try to dress or wear her hair like look-alike daughter Lindsay, as accused. “I was born blond. God gave me what I look like. I can’t change that,” she observed. And she says she no longer goes mother-daughter clubbing: “I don’t party with Lindsay. In the early years, I would go with her to clubs, because I wanted to see who the enablers were.”

[From the NY Daily News]

From the mind of Dina Lohan:

“It’s not my fault I come from an entertainment family, I was a dancer and I just had to manage Lindsay and she’s a 26 year old CHILD and there are so many enablers, so many people who just hand her a vodka tonic just because I’m blonde and I’m not making excuses, but sometimes a vodka tonic doesn’t mean you’re an alcoholic and of course I go to clubs with her except when I don’t and do you have photo evidence because that’s all I’ll admit to because it’s my fault for being born into such an all-blonde entertainment family, we were all raised as drinkers, blonde drinking, red wine, vodka tonics, red wine, but really Lindsay is always being set up because she’s so famous, famous for being from an entertainment family, we’ll all blonde performers, we all have enablers, we all drank and we all love our wine, and if you’re an alcoholic, sometimes that just means “wine only” of course, but we all danced and entertained, except when we were passing down crack heisting skills through the generations, but I’m not making excuses except to say that it was a SET UP and I don’t know where Aliana is, but she wants to be just like Lindsay, an actress and a model and she’ll make so, so much money just the way that Lindsay makes money and I still get my 20% cut of her hooker gigs but I’m not making excuses except that Lindsay’s assistant is so sketchy, is he a black guy that we can blame for everything?…MORE WINE.”

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and Pacific Coast News.