Yahoo Lifestyle Jennifer Love Hewitt Says TV Hosts Sexualized Her at 16 Years Old: ‘Grown Men Talking About My Breasts Openly on a Talk Show’ and Everyone’s ‘Laughing’
Jennifer Love Hewitt was the latest guest on Mayim Bialik’s “Breakdown” podcast (via US Weekly) and recalled how it wasn’t until she was in her thirties that she registered just how much the media sexualized her as a teenager. The actor got her breakthrough on titles “Party of Five” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” both of which were released to much fanfare when Hewitt was 16 to 18 years old.
“In my thirties, I went back and looked at that time again and I was like, ‘Oh my God’,” Hewitt said. “There were grown men talking to me at 16 about my breasts just openly on a talk show, and people were laughing about it. I don’t even remember that. I really didn’t take that part in, but in hindsight it was really strange I think to become a sex symbol sort of for people before I even knew what that was.”
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Hewitt “didn’t even know what sexy meant” during a period of time when she was constantly being objectified by the media, adding: “I was on the cover of Maxim magazines, and people would openly walk up and be like, ‘I took your magazine with me on a trip last week.’ I didn’t know what that meant, you know what I mean? It’s kind of gross. I think later it sort of hit me more, kind of the things that I probably went through somewhere. But at the time, it felt very innocent and exciting and fun.”
“I Know What You Did Last Summer” was a huge box office hit in 1997, earning $125 million worldwide. After the movie came out, Hewitt said that people started making jokes to her such as: “Oh, I know what your breasts did last summer.”
“Everybody would laugh, and so I would laugh because it was supposed to be funny, I guess,” Hewitt said. “It didn’t register with me that this was a grown man talking about my breasts on national television.”
“By the way, I don’t blame them for asking the questions or making the jokes or doing it,” she continued. “It was a culture that was fully accepted. They were allowed to believe that that was appropriate, I answered the questions, laughed right along. I have no problem with them for doing it. But when you sit and you look at where we are now versus then, it’s really mind-blowing.”
Variety confirmed last December that Hewitt is returning as Julie James in Sony’s upcoming “I Know What You Did Last Summer” reboot, directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. She joins original co-star Freddie Prinze Jr. in coming back to the franchise, which will see new cast additions like Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyriq Withers, Jonah Haur-King, Lola Tung and Nicholas Alexander Chavez. Sony Pictures will release the film in theaters on July 18.
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