NEWS'Insecure' Jennifer Love Hewitt Admits She Never 'Recovered' From Being Fat-Shamed for 2007 Bikini Photos
It took many years for Jennifer Love Hewitt to realize she was a 's-- symbol.'
July 19 2025, Published 5:35 p.m. ET
The ghost of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s 2007 bikini photos still haunts her to this day.
Bikini-clad Hewitt was photographed 18 years ago in Hawaii as she stood in the ocean, prompting a shameful headline that would follow her throughout her adulthood. “Stop Calling Me Fat!” reads the article published by People.
In a new interview from July 18, the 46-year-old admitted she never fully “recovered” from the body-shaming, saying, “I don’t think I was ever really insecure until that cover.”
'Is This Version Going to Be Good Enough?'
The actress said she was having the 'time of my life' when her bikini photos were snapped in 2007.
“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?’” she recalled thinking. “Where somebody’s going to be like, ‘Hey, this is her without makeup at the cleaners. She looks 59.’”
At the time of the viral photos, the I Know What You Did Last Summer actress said she was “having the time of my life,” adding, “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.”
Jennifer Love Hewitt as a 'S-- Symbol'
Jennifer Love Hewitt has been in the entertainment industry since she was 10 years old.
Growing up in the entertainment industry since the age of 10, Hewitt’s distinctive beauty set a standard that she seemingly could not keep up with at the time, leaving her unable to just be.
“Before I even knew what s-- was, I was a s-- symbol,” she said of the impossible standards that came along with her fame. “I still don’t know that I have that fully defined for myself because it started so weird.”
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Jennifer Love Hewitt's Advice From Her Mom
The actress' mom gave her sound advice to boost her confidence.
The Ghost Whisperer star told the news outlet that her mom, Patricia Mae Hewitt, helped her reclaim her confidence after the viral photo-op, saying, “She was like, ‘You don’t get it. You can’t win. This is just people having a problem with the version of you they think belongs to them.’”
Jennifer continued, “And she said, ‘Take your power back. Belong to yourself, and don’t worry about it.’”
Jennifer Love Hewitt's Confidence Boosts in '9-1-1' Role
Jennifer Love Hewitt said her role as Maddie Buckley in '9-1-1' has helped her self-esteem.
The actress noted that her role as Maddie Buckley in ABC’s 9-1-1, which is in the middle of filming Season 9, helped reshape her identity in the public eye.
“It was the work, and then it was the body. And not the body of work,” she shared. “Now we’re getting back to the work part of it.”
Jennifer elaborated that her role on the hit series allows her to be her most authentic self, even if that means she has to show every side of herself. “I get to be, not ugly, but raw in a way that doesn’t matter,” she said. “I get to put all those little things into her that maybe I didn’t notice or get to pay attention to along the way and heal them. I give that to Maddie constantly.”
