Songfacts®:

• This song is an autobiographical account of Lindsay Lohan's run-ins with paparazzi and the rumors that spread about her. She was just 18 when the song was released, but was already a tabloid fixture often spotted at clubs. It's a bit disingenuous when she sings:
  
  I would like it if you take the cameras off of me
  Cause I just want a little room to breathe
  Can you please respect my privacy
  
  Lohan was living on her own in Los Angeles and went out of her way to be seen with famous friends in swanky places. "Tabloids were becoming, like, the main source of news in the world," she told Vanity Fair. "Which is really scary and sad, and I would look up to those girls in the tabloids. The Britneys and whatever. And I would be like, I want to be like that."
• Perhaps the most persistent rumor about Lohan leading up to this song was that she was dating the actor Wilmer Valderrama, who was seven years older. They went public as a couple on Lohan's 18th birthday (July 2, 2004), when he was 24. Her song "Over" is about Valderrama.
• The rumors surrounding Lohan were amplified over the next few years when she became much more visible in the clubs and lost a lot of weight. In 2007 she got a DUI, which spiraled into more arrests and various stints in rehab before she finally got sober sometime around 2014. "Rumors" stands as a prescient song that foretold problems to come.
• "Rumors" was the first single from Lohan's debut album, Speak. She wrote the song with Cory Rooney and the brothers Taryll and T.J. Jackson, who are Michael Jackson's nephews. Rooney, who also produced the song, has credits on some huge hits, including the Jennifer Lopez songs "Jenny From The Block" and "Ain't It Funny."
• Most of Lohan's musical output came in 2004 and 2005 when she released her only two albums. This was when she was in the films Mean Girls and Herbie: Fully Loaded. "Rumors" holds up as one of her most popular songs.