Jennifer Love Hewitt Says TV Hosts Sexualized Her at 16 Years Old: ‘Grown Men Talking About My Breasts Openly on a Talk Show’ and Everyone’s ‘Laughing’

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jennifer Love Hewitt was the latest guest on Mayim Bialik’s “Breakdown” podcast (via US Weekly) and recalled how it wasn’t until she was in her thirties that she registered just how much the media sexualized her as a teenager.

The actor got her breakthrough on shows like “Party of Five” and movies such as “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” both of which were released to much fanfare when Hewitt was 16 to 18 years old. “In my 30s, I sort of went back and looked at that time again and I was like, ‘Oh my God’,” Hewitt said. “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.” Hewitt “didn’t even know what sexy meant” during a period of time when she was constantly being objecitfied by the media, adding: “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.” “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was a huge box office hit in 1997 with $125 million worldwide.