Jennifer Love Hewitt slams being sexualized in 20s: 'I felt watched'
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Jennifer Love Hewitt doesn’t love people who are still obsessing over her younger self.
The 44-year-old was surely the It girl in Hollywood throughout the ’90s and 2000s, starring in career-making hits such as “Party of Five,” “Heartbreakers,” “Can’t Hardly Wait” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”
Hewitt is over trolls who keep comparing how she looks now to how her body looked in her early 20s.
“She was a looker,” the “Client List” star said about her physique back in the day while chatting on a recent episode of the “Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum” podcast.
“But also that 23- and 25-year-old wasn’t in her body,” Hewitt continued.
“I felt watched. I felt like I had to be everything for everybody all the time.
“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.”
In 2002, she recalled being told to “be sexier” on the set of her rom-com “Heartbreakers.”
“I know that I’m supposed to be this thing for people, but I don’t know what that means,” she told a producer at the time.
Hewitt then noted how she struggled with people’s perceptions of her.
She went on: “It’s weird for me when people are like, ‘That’s the girl that we wanted you to be.’ “
“That girl was so insecure and so confused and trying her best. But this girl — who may not look [that] way — I like who I am. I feel good. I’m fine.”
She still has her moments, though. “I mean, not every day,” she went on. “There’s definitely times where I look in the mirror and I’m like, ‘Oh, dear God, what has happened?’ “
Hewitt is now married to Brian Hallisay, and the pair share three children together — Autumn, 10, Atticus, 8, and Aidan, 2.
“I’m a mother of a girl, and it’s dangerous what we put on people,” the “Ghost Whisperer” alum noted. “It’s dangerous to say to women, ‘You can’t look like you’re not 22 to me anymore.’ “
As for what she would directly tell her critics? “OK, well, that’s your problem,” Hewitt said. “Because I’m 44, and this is what I look like.”
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