Jennifer Love Hewitt is standing up for herself after coming under scrutiny on social media.
The I Know What You Did Last Summer star recently went viral for using an Instagram filter while showing off her new haircut.
She hilariously responded after being called “unrecognisable,” but is now earnestly reflecting on how hard it is to age in the spotlight.
“Aging in Hollywood is really hard... because you can’t do anything right,” she said on an episode of Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside Of You podcast earlier this month.
“I had this thing a few weeks ago … I was getting my hair done and I had not a stitch of makeup on, so I threw on a filter … I really gave it no thought.”
“And a bunch of people were like, ‘Jennifer Love Hewitt is unrecognisable,’ and then another place was like, ‘She’s unrecognisable and so she’s gone to filters because she doesn’t want us to know how bad she actually looks now in her 40s,’” Jennifer added. “And I was like, ‘This is crazy, right?’”
The 44-year-old responded at the time by posting several filtered selfies on her Instagram story that did make her look unrecognisable, while cheekily claiming she “couldn’t look more natural”. She revealed on the podcast that even these clear jokes were met with criticism.
“They were like, ‘Well now she’s just defending herself’ and, like, ‘Why is she defending?’” Jennifer said. “And I realised, like, ‘I can do no right.’”
Jennifer has been acting for more than 30 years and while she’s proud of her facial features, she told the host that some people “freeze you” the “moment they fall in love with you,” and “that’s who they want you to always be.” For Jennifer, that moment was her early to mid-20s.
“They seem to have picked somewhere between 23 and 25 for me which, by the way, she was a looker,” she said, speaking on her younger self. “Congratulations to that 23 or 25-year old, that’s great, but that 23 or 25-year-old wasn’t in her body ... I didn’t feel self-confident — I felt watched.”
“I felt like I had to be everything for everybody all the time,” she added. “I was called ‘sexy’ before I ever knew what being sexy was. I was 17 years old on the cover of Maxim — and I had no idea why I was on the cover…”
The 9-1-1 alum admittedly doesn’t want to care what others think, but said “it’s human nature” to. Still, Jennifer said she likes who she is now, saying: “This girl? I like who I am. I feel good. I’m fine.”