It shouldn’t have to be said, but, just as a reminder — sex symbols are people too.
Jennifer Love Hewitt revealed to Vulture in a recent profile that she still hasn’t “recovered” from a major identity crisis she had in the early aughts.
The “I Know What You Did Last Summer” star rose to fame in 1995 at the age of 15 when she scored a role on the hit TV series, “Party of Five.” Despite Hewitt being a teenager, she was instantly objectified.
Jennifer Love Hewitt attends the Los Angeles premiere of 2025’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer” earlier this month.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin via Getty Images
“Before I even knew what sex was, I was a sex symbol,” Hewitt told Vulture. “I still don’t know that I have that fully defined for myself because it started so weird.”
The “9-1-1” star admitted to the outlet that she leaned into her sexpot persona for the sake of her career, but she never really gelled with it. She described herself multiple times in the profile as “goofy.”
Hewitt attends the Century City premiere of “That Thing You Do” in 1996.
Vinnie Zuffante via Getty Images
Yet, Hewitt’s sense of self got flipped upside down in 2007 when she decided to take a vacation to Hawaii with her then-fiancé Ross McCall. The pair spent a day frolicking on the beach, and the next morning Hewitt received a rude awakening. People magazine ran the photos of Hewitt on the beach with McCall as a cover story with the headline, “Stop Calling Me Fat!”
The “Can’t Hardly Wait” star said the experience was shattering.
“I don’t think I was ever really insecure until that cover. And then when it happened, I don’t know that I’ve ever recovered from it,” Hewitt said. “Because there’s a part of me that’s always like, Is this version going to be good enough, or is that going to happen again? Where somebody’s going to be like, ‘Hey, this is her without makeup at the cleaners. She looks 59.’”
Hewitt arrives at Spike TV event in 2007, the same year her photos were shot in Hawaii.
Steve Granitz via Getty Images
Hewitt’s pain went deeper than mere vanity. She heartbreakingly described to Vulture what she was thinking when these “unflattering” photos of her were shot.
“I was having the time of my life,” Hewitt said. “I had made up the dumbest song about eating snacks and playing in the ocean, and I was singing it to my boyfriend out loud, doing some weird dance move, and they got the picture and then it was on the cover.”
Hewitt went on to pinpoint why this incident affected her so profoundly.
“Because that was me,” she confessed to Vulture about the candid paparazzi photos. “I think that’s why the insecurity carried on. I don’t know if I’ve even ever put that together for myself other than right now.”
“I think I was like, ′Oh, my God, I was myself one time, and this is what happened,’” she said.
Hewitt in her current role as Maddie on “9-1-1.”
Christopher Willard via Getty Images
This isn’t the first time Hewitt has expressed her frustrations with her appearance overshadowing her true self.
Earlier this year, she described the “gross” feedback she got from the public after she starred in the first “I Know What You Did Last Summer” film in 1997.
“Eeverybody said, ‘Oh, I know what your breasts did last summer,’” Hewitt explained on an episode of “Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown.” Hewitt also told Bialik that she was annoyed by the original film’s marketing as well.
“I was so mad that I had done my first movie and worked so hard, and the only thing that you see is a movie poster with boobs on it,” she said.
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Hewitt told Vulture that her current role on “9-1-1” is the first time since her “Party of Five” days that audiences are actually invested in her performance, rather than her body.
“It was the work and then it was the body. And not the body of work,” Hewitt said. “Now we’re getting back to the work part of it.”