Lindsay Lohan was caught up in controversy early yesterday after hitting a paparazzi while trying to drive away from New York club Butter.

As the photographer writhed around on the floor, the star was escorted out of her white BMW and into a minder’s black SUV nearby.

An ambulance was called to the scene and the unnamed snapper was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was treated for a bruised knee and later released.

Lohan and her entourage then raced through the New York streets to escape the snappers on her tail, and when the vehicle she was a passenger in drove the wrong way up a one-way street, the paparazzi followed and two photographers were pulled over by police and cited.

The actress reportedly returned to the scene of the accident an hour later.