Spears and Lohan were two of the biggest names struggling to get their lives and careers back on track after a year where they seemed to lurch from one lurid tabloid headline to the next.
Both stars checked in and out of rehabilitation centres more than once this year, with Spears' increasingly erratic behaviour ultimately seeing her stripped of custody of her two children following her divorce from Kevin Federline.
Lohan, 21, found herself in the news after being discovered passed out in a hotel corridor following the Golden Globes in January, a red flag warning that was followed by the now customary stint in rehab.
Yet it got worse when Lohan was caught for drunk driving and drug possession in May only to be nabbed for the same offences in July.
Lohan eventually escaped a lengthy prison sentence, spending only 84 minutes behind bars.
Lohan has kept a low profile since completing a spell in an austere Utah rehab clinic in October, but the impact that her wayward behaviour has had on her career remains to be seen.
"Right now, she'd have to pay a studio to get herself into a movie," a film studio executive was quoted by Entertainment Weekly as saying of Lohan.
The executive blamed Lohan and other young celebrities' travails on "Hollywood's compulsion to turn child actors into products, plus a frenzied 21st-century media culture that has made Lohan and other celebs into exotic prey in flashbulb cages."While Lohan escaped with less than two hours behind bars, hotel heiress Paris Hilton was not so fortunate.
The reality television star and professional 'celebutante' was shell-shocked after a Los Angeles judge sentenced her to 45 days prison in alcohol-related reckless driving case in May.
However the real drama was still to come. Released into home detention after spending just three days behind bars, she was swiftly hauled sobbing back to court where a judge ordered her returned to prison.
She emerged from incarceration to a blizzard of flashbulbs in late June, drawing a line under a celebrity soap-opera that transfixed the world.
Ironically, Hilton's co-star and friend Nicole Richie also spent time behind bars in 2007, albeit a less-than-harrowing 82 minutes, after being caught driving under the influence down the wrong way of a Los Angeles freeway.
Richie, the 25-year-old daughter of soul singer Lionel Richie, was also fined $US2,048 ($2,351) and placed on probation for three years.
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