Jennifer Love Hewitt has been a bonafide Hollywood starlet since the 1990s — and she’s opening up about the unrealistic expectations that come with being in the spotlight for decades.
“I feel like fans pick this age that they love that they think represents you, and you’re never supposed to grow beyond that,” Hewitt, 45, told Fox New Digital in an interview published on Thursday, December 26. “For me, it was like me and my 20s. People seem to have a really hard time accepting that I don’t look that way anymore.”
While Hewitt started her acting career at a young age on Kids Incorporated, she had her first big break at 16 years old when she landed the role of Sarah Reeves on Fox’s Party of Five. Two years later, she became a global sensation with 1997’s slasher hit I Know What You Did Last Summer and its subsequent sequel. She has since starred in shows like Time of Your Life, The Client List and Ghost Whisperer, and released four studio albums.
While some may have had trouble watching her evolve over the years, Hewitt — who shares kids, Autumn, 11, Atticus, 9, and Aidan, 3, with husband Brian Hallisay — sees aging as a beautiful thing.
“Age is age,” she explained. “I think women really come into this acceptance of themselves and comfortability in their 40s that is beautiful.”
These days, she stars as Maddie Buckley on ABC procedural 9-1-1 and just released The Holiday Junkie, a TV film which she directed and starred in.
“It’s hard because I think as humans, we want to evolve,” she continued. “We want to have lines on our faces, and you know our boobs be lower from breast-feeding our children, or, you know, our butt’s bigger.”
However, Hewitt is only human, and can’t help but occasionally notice trolls’ comments on social media.
“Whatever it is, you just want to have the freedom to be whoever you are at that age,” she explained. “And it’s hurtful sometimes when people reject you as you are verbally on Instagram or the internet because they’re having a hard time adjusting to it.”
The criticism reached a boiling point last year when Hewitt posted a photo of herself with no makeup, leading to claims that she was “unrecognizable.” She addressed the photo on a December 2023 episode of Michael Rosenbaum’s “Inside of You” podcast.
“The picture ended up somewhere. And a bunch of people were like, ‘Jennifer Love Hewitt is unrecognizable,’” she said. “’She’s unrecognizable and so she’s gone to filters because she doesn’t want us to know how bad she actually looks now in her 40s.’ And I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ Right?”
Hewitt also took time to look back at her younger self and offer some advice to the teenager who graced the cover of Maxim at age 17.
“Look, it’s going to work out. You’re going to start getting old, and they’re still going to let you do things,” she said. “It’s OK. You’re fine.”
