The star of Party of Five and I Know What You Did Last Summer looks back and is grateful she didn’t think too much about her attention.
In the late 90s, the ultimate “It girl” was Jennifer Love Hewitt. The actress started young in movies like Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit and House Arrest. She would then breakthrough with her role as Sarah in the successful FOX drama series Party of Five. That show led to movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Can’t Hardly Wait. She became a 90s sex symbol as she donned the cover of magazines, crossed over into the music business as a singer and became the spokesperson for Neutrogena skin care.
US Weekly reports that Hewitt recently appeared on the Breakdown podcast with fellow 90s child star, Mayim Bialik. The Party of Five star looked back at her time as a sex symbol and recalled,
In my 30s, I sort of went back and looked at that time again and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ 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.”
At the age of 45, Hewitt now says that as she appeared in magazines like Maxim and other male publications in the past, she “didn’t even know what sexy meant.” She expounded, “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.”
She continues to say how grateful she was that she didn’t think too much about it at the time. She explained, “Had I taken on some of that earlier, I think it would have messed with me a little bit, but it didn’t for whatever reason. When I watched the Britney Spears documentary, that was really honestly the light bulb for me. When I watched it, I finished watching it, and my husband [Brian Hallisay] was like, ‘Why do you look so disturbed?’ and I was like, ‘I know what that feels like.’ I know sitting there and being asked those questions and it never dawned on me that it was inappropriate.”
