Jennifer Love Hewitt Recalls Being Sexualized as a Young Actress: ‘I Felt Watched’

On a recent episode of the Inside of You podcast, the 44-year-old star recalled how she didn’t understand why everyone wanted her to be “sexy” when she was in her late teens and early 20s, admitting that in reality, she was “insecure” and “confused” at the time.

“These people have picked … like, somewhere between 23 and 25 for me, which, by the way, she was a looker,” Hewitt told host Michael Rosenbaum.

While the actress said that’s “great” and all, she shared that she “wasn’t in her body” and “didn’t feel self-confident” at that age.

“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,” she continued. “I was 17 years old on the cover of Maxim, and I had no idea why.”

“It’s weird for me when people are like, ‘That’s the girl that we wanted you to be,'” she added. “That girl was so insecure and [was] 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.”

Hewitt shared that while she does “feel sexy now,” she admitted that she doesn’t feel that way “every day.” (She is human, after all.)

“There’s definitely times where I look in the mirror and I’m like, ‘Oh, dear god, what has happened?'” she joked.

The Can’t Hardly Wait star said it’s “dangerous” how some people only think of her — or any other woman — as how they looked at a certain age.

“It’s dangerous, I think, to say to women, ‘You can’t look like you’re not 22 to me anymore because I don’t know how to take that,'” she told Rosenbaum. “Okay, well, that’s your problem because I’m 44, and this is what I look like.'”

Elsewhere during the conversation about aging as a woman in Hollywood, Hewitt addressed the comments from over September, in which critics accused her of being “unrecognizable” or trying to hide how she really looks when she was just trying to show off a new hairdo on social media at the time.

Hewitt said that she didn’t really think much beyond the moment when she opted to use a filter on the picture because she had “not a stitch of makeup on.”

The I Know What You Did Last Summer alum really thought the focus would be on her hair. Instead…

“A bunch of people were like, ‘Jennifer Love Hewitt is unrecognizable,'” Hewitt said. “‘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.'”

As the reaction expanded to speculation that she must have had plastic surgery, or at least a brow lift, Hewitt leaned into what she thought was just craziness by sharing more pictures with even more dramatic filters.

She captioned the hilariously obnoxious snaps — which you can check out here — with the message, “I look the same as always. Couldn’t look more natural…Filters don’t change you that much.” She then added on a more serious note, “Let people be filtered or unfiltered. Be good. Be kind. Spread love.”

But even this cheeky and playful response to the non-controversy sparked a reaction. “They were like, ‘Well, now she’s just defending herself and why is she defending?'” said the Party of Five alum. “I realized I can do no right.”

She went on to say that while she’d love to be able to say she just doesn’t pay any attention to online trolls, “to pretend that we don’t is a lie.”