Lindsay Lohan Would Be Worth More Dead Than Alive, Author Says

Given how Lindsay Lohan has fallen from grace due to her alcohol and drug problems, it's no wonder the ex-jailbird would probably be worth more dead than alive, according to the excerpt from Jo Piazza's new book Celebrity Inc. that Gawker posted Tuesday.

The writing on the wall came courtesy of Marketing Evaluations, a group that calculates how bankable celebrities are by simplifying public opinion about each one as a quotient, which insiders call a Q score.

After learning that Lohan's negative Q score in 2010 was a robust 52, Piazza noted that lots of people held a dim view of Michael Jackson too -- before his death, anyway. A couple of months after he died in 2009, the King of Pop -- whose eccentric behavior and legal battles with the families of children claiming sexual abuse led to his negative Q score of 67 in February 2006 -- wound up with a positive Q score of 34.

Once a celebrity passes away, the public is more apt to focus on their talents and the good in their life than the bad, Marketing Evaluations CEO Steve Levitt told Piazza.

Having left her Disney days in the dust, dropping dead might be the only way for LiLo to reclaim the positive Q of 19 she got in 2004, when she headlined Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen and Mean Girls.

Speaking of Mean Girls, see if you can guess who's missing from the cover of the video-game version due out this year. Marketers were afraid moms would see Lohan's face and pass, wrote Piazza.

Apparently, pictures of LiLo's entire body for Playboy's January issue didn't sit well with Hugh Hefner, who E! Online reported Nov. 2 had insisted she pose for another session.

Still, at least every tabloid's favorite cover girl can take comfort in the fact that Playboy's one of many fine publications in which her name can be a selling point...and, now that Bluewater Productions has its hat in the ring with Infamous: Lindsay Lohan, she's got her very own comic book, too.