Around 10 years ago, Anne Hathaway was at a peak in her career, thanks to her work in films like The Princess Diaries, Brokeback Mountain and The Devil Wears Prada. But at the height of her success, she was subject to extreme backlash from the public, and now she’s speaking about the unwarranted vitriol she endured.
The infamous “Hathahate” phenomenon was a time following Hathaway’s Academy award nomination for her role as a recovering drug addict in Rachel Getting Married and her eventual Oscar win for her portrayal of Fantine, a grisette (a young working-class French woman) dying from tuberculosis, in Les Misérables.
While her career was thriving, her public image began to crumble. Marked by a misogynistic society who deemed Hathaway as “annoying”, there was never a proper reason for the hate directed towards her that lasted for years. Speaking about the hate in 2021, Hathaway admitted that it left her feeling “shocked” and “embarrassed”, but taught her how to love herself more authentically.
Now, the WeCrashed star addressed the ‘Hathahate’ once again, explaining that she no longer “lives in fear of it”.
“Ten years ago, I was given an opportunity to look at the language of hatred from a new perspective. For context, this was a language I had employed with myself since I was seven,” Hathaway said during her acceptance speech at Elle’s 29th annual Women in Hollywood event.
She continued, “And when your self-inflicted pain is suddenly somehow amplified back at you at, say, the full volume of the internet…It’s a thing.”
“When it happened to me, I realised that this wasn’t it. This wasn’t the spot. When what happened, happened, I realised I had no desire to have anything to do with this line of energy, on any level,” she recalled. “I would no longer create art from this place. I would no longer hold space for it, live in fear of it, nor speak its language for any reason, to anyone, including myself.”
Having since moved on from how the world unfairly treated her, Hathaway spoke about how the public’s strong distaste for her existence was hate against women, especially successful women.
“We don’t have enough time to discuss all the myriad causes of the violent language of hatred, and the imperative need to end it. Because there is a difference between existence and behaviour. You can judge behaviour. You can forgive behaviour or not,” she said, adding, “But you do not have the right to judge—and especially not hate—someone for existing. And if you do, you’re not where it’s at.”
She concluded, “Hate seems to me to be the opposite of life; in soil that harsh, nothing can grow properly, if at all. I want to say: Be happy for women. Period. Especially be happy for high-achieving women. Like, it’s not that hard.”
Hathaway is currently promoting her latest film, Armageddon Time, opposite Succession‘s Jeremy Strong. Recently the Love & Other Drugs star defended her co-star, after the internet took aim at him following his highly-discussed profile in the New Yorker.
“As the week ends, I would like to send some love to Jeremy Strong who I’m lucky enough to have worked with twice and who I am proud to consider a friend,” she wrote on Instagram.
“I deeply value his qualities of thoughtfulness, sincerity, authenticity, sweetness, depth, kindness, generosity, as well as his powerful intelligence and extraordinary sensitivity.”
Hathaway went onto call Strong an “inspiring” person, both on and off the screen, and referred to the actor as a “passionate” person, who “crushed” the latest season of his hit-show, Succession.
“He is an incredibly talented and inventive artist who is fully engaged and committed on set, as well as a passionate, open person in life,” she said. “I find all of these things inspiring. (oh, and he’s fun.)”
She finished off her statement with a subtle clap back at the New Yorker piece, adding, “(for the record, the work is where the story begins and ends for me.)”
Here’s to Hathaway’s new (and long overdue) reign. And now that we know her thoughts on a Devil Wears Prada sequel, you can bet we’re fawning over her renaissance now more than ever.
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