"When I watched that Britney Spears documentary, it hurt my heart a little bit, because I remember in hindsight having that feeling."
Jennifer Love Hewitt is looking back at the "incredibly inappropriate" media attention she received surrounding her body in the early '00s. In a new interview with Vulture, the 9-1-1 star opens up about filming Heartbreakers and the "gross" questions she was asked by interviewers around that time.
"It’s interesting, I just watched the Britney Spears documentary [Framing Britney Spears], and there’s that whole section in there, talking about her breasts. At the time that I was going through it, and interviewers were asking what now would be incredibly inappropriate, gross things, it didn’t feel that way," Hewitt revealed. "I mean, I was in barely any clothing the whole movie. For some reason, in my brain, I was able to just go, 'Okay, well, I guess they wouldn’t be asking if it was inappropriate.'"
Hewitt told the magazine that she started getting asked questions about her body following the release of I Know What You Did Last Summer, saying that it was the first time she had worn a "low top" on screen.
"It really started with I Know What You Did Last Summer, because that was the first time that I had worn a low top, and on Party of Five, my body was very covered," she shared. "At a press junket for I Know or I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, I remember purposely wearing a T-shirt that said “Silicone Free” on it because I was so annoyed, and I knew something about boobs was gonna be the first question out of [reporters’] mouths. I was really tired of that conversation."
And the conversation only continued with Heartbreakers.
"With Heartbreakers, that was a big part of it. I was disappointed that it was all about body stuff, because I had really worked hard in that movie to do a good job as an actress," Hewitt admitted. "So I remember one specific moment wishing that the acting had overshadowed all that — that for five minutes, they had said I was really great in the movie versus made a body comment."
The 42-year-old, who is a mother to a young daughter, wishes she hadn't laughed off some of those inappropriate questions at the time.
"Now that I’m older, I think, 'Gosh, I wish that I had known how inappropriate that was so I could have defended myself somehow or just not answered those questions.' I laughed it off a lot of the time, and I wish maybe I hadn’t," she said.
Hewitt hopes that this time of reckoning will prevent young actresses from having to engage in those kinds of conversations.
"When I watched that Britney Spears documentary, it hurt my heart a little bit, because I remember in hindsight having that feeling. I’m really grateful that we’re in a time where, hopefully, that narrative is going to change for young girls who are coming up now, and they won’t have to have those conversations," she shared.
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