Jennifer Love Hewitt dishes on her struggles ‘ageing in Hollywood’ after ‘unrecognisable’ photo

Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt has opened up about the scrutiny she receives on social media as she gets older in the public eye.

She’s getting unfiltered.

Jennifer Love Hewitt opened up about the hate she received on social media after chopping off her hair in a recent episode of the Inside of You podcast, sharing that she felt she “can do no right” when it comes to ageing in the public eye.

The 9-1-1 star, 44, debuted a much shorter haircut in August, with fans flooding the comments section of her now-deleted Instagram post with remarks wondering if she’d undergone plastic surgery.

Hewitt told host Michael Rosenbaum “ageing in Hollywood is really hard,” sharing the story of how she “threw on a filter” while getting her hair done because she “had not a stitch of makeup on.”

“It was just a filter that like, at the time, looked nice in the light at the salon. I really gave it no thought,” she said.

Jennifer Love Hewitt opens about ageing in Hollywood on the Inside of You podcast.

Continuing that “the picture ended up somewhere,” the Ghost Whisperer actress said, “A bunch of people were like, ‘Jennifer Love Hewitt is unrecognisable.’ She’s unrecognisable, so she’s gone to filters because she doesn’t want us to know how bad she actually looks now in her 40s.’”

Adding that the response was “crazy,” Hewitt said she decided to clap back by using “over-the-top” and “crazy filters,” but that went awry, too.

“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 I realised I can do no right,” she said.

When asked by Rosenbaum why she’s “focusing so much on these a***holes who have nothing better to do than to put you down,” Hewitt replied, “because to pretend that we don’t, is a lie.”

The Party of Five star continued that in Hollywood, “You don’t want to care what people think about you, but you have to care what people think about you.”

Hewitt acknowledged that fans tend to think of you in a certain way forever, sharing that she’s “a Swiftie” and that Taylor Swift once said that “people freeze you,” making it hard for celebrities to change or get older.

Hewitt rose to fame with roles such as Heartbreakers, Party of Five and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Picture: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

Plenty of fans defended the I Know What You Did Last Summer star in the podcast’s TikTok comments, with one writing, “She looks great to me. Not old. 40 is not old.”

“Ageing is tough period, but yes, those who have the spotlight/paparazzi all over them and scrutinise every little thing is just crazy! everyone ages!” another fan wrote.

Others doubled down on the “unrecognisable” front, like one who wrote, “I thought it was someone talking about Jennifer Love Hewitt here. I didn’t know it was herself.”

“She definitely looks different. Fantastic! But different,” another fan agreed.

Filtered or not, this star always glows.

This article originally appeared in Page Six and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Jennifer Love Hewitt dishes on her struggles ‘ageing in Hollywood’ after ‘unrecognisable’ photo