Jennifer Love Hewitt Shared the Cringey Comments She Received About Her Looks as a Woman in Her 40s
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Jennifer Love Hewitt is trying really hard to move forward after one decision she made on Instagram turned into a debate on aging — and she’s tired of having to defend herself as a woman in her 40s in Hollywood. In August, she innocently used a filter while showing off a new haircut, something many users do regularly.
The only reason she chose to use a filter was because she didn’t have “a stitch of makeup on,” she explained to the Inside of You podcast. “I really gave it no thought,” she added. But the internet gave it a lot of thought and kept telling her, “‘Jennifer Love Hewitt is unrecognizable.’ ‘She’s unrecognizable, so she’s gone to filters because she doesn’t want us to know how bad she actually looks now in her 40s.'” The 44-year-old actress tried to brush off the criticism by using humor and posting snapshots with “over the top” filters to diffuse the situation.
She wrote on her Instagram photos at the time, “So many people said I look different,” she captioned the Instagram pics in September, per Allure. “I look the same as always. Couldn’t look more natural…Filters don’t change you that much.” Unfortunately, that only made the situation worse with her critics and the 9-1-1 star had to endure another round of cringey comments. “They were like, ‘Well, now she’s just defending herself and why is she defending?'” she said. “I realized I can do no right.”
What humanized the moment, and made us feel sad for Hewitt, is that she revealed how cutting some of the commentary was. While she would love to just ignore the cruelty, it’s really hard to ignore. “To pretend that we don’t is a lie,” she noted. Women in Hollywood keep sounding the alarm on how harmful the negative aging conversation is to everyone. It is a privilege to get older and all seasons of life should be celebrated.
Before you go, click here to see all the celebrity women who have spoken out about ageism.