Jennifer Love Hewitt was just 16 when she shot to fame in I Know What You Did Last Summer in 1997, but that didn’t stop men – most of them total strangers – from sexualising her against her will.
Exposing the “gross” behaviour she had to put up with after the movie made her famous on Mayim Bialik on her podcast Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown this week, 45-year-old Hewitt confessed she didn’t realise how sinister it was at the time.
“There were grown men talking to me at 16 about my breasts openly on a talk show, and people were laughing about it,” she said, adding that it was “fully accepted” in the ’90s.
Watch the video above.
READ MORE: All My Children star’s cause of death revealed
The sexual comments were so normalised that Hewitt forgot about most of them until about a decade ago, when she revisited interviews and other footage in her 30s.
“In hindsight, it was very strange to become a sex symbol for people before I even knew what that was,” she said, adding it was “kind of gross” that grown men were sexualising her as a teenager.
The cast of I Know What You Did Last Summer: Then and now
Fortunately, Hewitt had a strong support system around her when she rose to fame in the ’90s and her mother was especially protective of her as a young actress.
That shielded her from some of the unsavoury attitudes towards young women in Hollywood in the ’90s and 2000s, a fact Hewitt is now very grateful for.
READ MORE: Marianne Faithfull, music legend and ’60s pop star dies
”I think it would have messed with me a little bit, but it didn’t … maybe that’s because my mum was always around, keeping reality very apparent for me,” she added.
“I would go to a premiere, and people would want me to do things [afterward], and I’d have to go home and clean my room.”
Before she starred in the cult horror classic, Hewitt was a child actress known for her work on the Disney Channel.
READ MORE: Patti Smith collapses on stage mid-performance
She went on to have a successful acting career and also launched a music career, releasing multiple albums through the ’90s and 2000s.
In 2025, she’ll return to the big screen in the role that made her famous when she appears in the I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot, which shares the same title.
Slated for release in July, it will star Outer Banks star Madelyn Cline, Monsters actor Nicholas Alexander Chavez, and Freddie Prinze Jr., who also starred in the original 1997 version.
FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.