Jennifer Love Hewitt responds to critics who say she’s ‘unrecognizable’

As both a victim and survivor of toxic tabloid coverage, Jennifer Love Hewitt has faced scrutiny for her (absolutely lovely, even if it’s not the point) appearance for decades. Now, the actress is opening up about how she felt after news outlets and commenters alike called her “unrecognizable” for sharing selfies on social media with filters, and her candid response has us cheering.

The comments section of Hewitt’s Instagram page has been a mess for months (if not years!), with the 44-year-old admitting that the commentary about her appearance gets to her. On the Dec. 15th episode of the Inside of You podcast, the 9-1-1 star recalled a recent experience where she’d shared a photo of her new hair look, throwing on a filter before posting.

“Aging in Hollywood is really hard. You can’t do anything right,” she said. “I was getting my hair done and I had not a stitch of makeup on, so I threw on a filter. I really gave it no thought.”

“A bunch of people were like, ‘Jennifer Love Hewitt is unrecognizable,’” she said of the flurry of responses. “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.’ This is crazy, right?”

She responded by “trying to make fun of it” with selfies using “over-the-top” silly filters, which garnered even more backlash. “I was like, ‘All natural, no filter,’ like trying to make fun of it, and then they came after me for that and they were like, ‘Well, now she’s just defending herself and why is she defending?’” she said. “I realized I can do no right.”

When host Michael Rosenbaum asked why she’s “focusing on these assh*les who have nothing better to do but to put you down,” (exactly the comment we’d expect from a man, TBH!), she said, “Because to pretend that we don’t is a lie. You don’t want to care what people think about you, but you have to care what people think about you.”

Even if tabloids and trashy mags aren’t dictating the cultural conversation about women’s bodies, it almost feels worse now, because every troll has a platform with which to spew their toxic beliefs. Here’s hoping that she is able to ignore the noise however possible. As for people who love to criticize peoples’ appearances online, can we try literally anything else for a change? K, thanks. Bye!