19 Fury-Igniting Examples Of Celebs Who People Would Not Stop Sexualizing — Even, In Many Cases, When They Were Minors

    Howard Stern on the Olsen twins: "Now, normally I don't look at a 13-year-old and sexualize them, I don't, but these two are pieces of ass. They've grown up so perfect."

    Hannah Marder
    by Hannah Marder

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Recently, Reddit user littlehoneybear2104 asked about which celebs have been over-sexualized and how it's affected their careers, and there were a lot of infuriating replies. Here are 19 celebrities who were horrible sexualized and objectified in the media, some of them even when they were underage.

    1. Brooke Shields

    Closeup of Brooke Shields
    Calvin Klein

    "Probably the worst exploitation of a celebrity's sexuality I've seen in my lifetime."

    —u/shineymike91

    "She played a prostitute in a movie at the age of 11 (with full nude scenes) and had fully nude pictures taken and PUBLISHED in a Playboy publication at the tender age of 10. ... Blue Lagoon used older body doubles for some of the nude scenes, but of course, not at all. Then there’s the Calvin Klein Jean ads of her at 15 with the 'You know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing' line that was pretty provocative. Barbara Walters and many other grown adult journalists proceeded to ask her wildly inappropriate questions about her body and sex life and sexual history at the age of 15/16."

    —u/bathtubfullofhotdogs

    2. Zac Efron

    "I lost my mind."
    Netflix

    "In his show Down to Earth, there’s a car ride scene where Zac cries when he’s talking about girls who had obsessed over him and [how] it caused a lot of trauma for him."

    —u/VelmaSaint

    "Efron is also an example of how body image hurts men as well. I think in that same show he starts crying when he eats some carbs for the first time in years."

    —u/NuttyButts

    3. Britney Spears

    Britney Spears in an interview
    GlitterBritney / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    Suggested by u/beforewedrift

    Spears has faced an extreme amount of sexist criticism and objectification in the media. Even as a teenager, she was constantly asked inappropriate interview questions, including about her virginity and her breasts. She was relentlessly criticized for sexual lyrics and her fashion sense, and she was horribly vilified in the media for the Justin Timberlake breakup — she was memorably brought to tears when Diane Sawyer interviewed her and brought up the topic. 

    4. Megan Fox

    Megan Fox on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"
    NBC

    Suggested by WishboneInformal

    "I'll never forget that time she was on Jimmy Kimmel, talking about being objectified at 15 while filming Bad Boys II, and the reaction by everybody around her. Appalling."

    —u/TimeStudyMan

    "The way they treated her while marketing the movie Jennifer's Body was gross. The movie is actually decent, but they basically advertised it like a porn because she was in it and made her do awkward publicity for it."

    —u/Queef-Elizabeth

    5. Lindsay Lohan

    Lindsay Lohan on "SNL"
    NBC

    "Maybe not so much anymore, but Lindsay Lohan was from the time she filmed Freaky Friday until when she turned 18. Just watch her first time hosting SNL."

    —u/clp401

    6. Ariana Grande

    Ariana Grande on "Victorious"
    Nickelodeon

    Suggested by u/byproduct0

    "I remember someone put together a compilation of the kids show Ariana was on showing the very obvious foot fetish of someone behind the camera. It was horrifying. It was a lot of things that in a vacuum you'd see and say, 'That was a little weird, but I guess it might make someone laugh?' But when you see it all out together, it's so gross and obvious."

    —u/TheArcReactor

    7. Miley Cyrus

    Perez Hilton and Miley Cyrus
    Jamie McCarthy / WireImage via Getty Images

    Suggested by u/byproduct0

    "I was a huge fan at the time, and I'll never forget companies paying paps to take closeup photos of underaged Miley in bathing suits, and Perez Hilton literally commenting on them when she was around 16. These photos are still out there, his logo slapped on them and his report sexualizing and slut-shaming her is there alongside. ... The incestuous, sexualized Vanity Fair cover at barely 15 didn't help either. ... She had both of her parents pushing her to earn money for them, Disney on one side forcing the innocent girl image, her on another trying to find herself and who she was in turbulent teenage years. And the public side on another condemning everything she did. Being a child/teen star is so fucked."

    —u/fuzzypipe39

    8. Emma Watson

    Emma Watson in an interview
    Ovo Luther / YouTube / HeForShe / Via youtube.com

    "I remember when as soon as Emma Watson turned 18, the paparazzi went wild, trying to get pictures up her dress and everything."

    —u/M0Nd0R0ck

    "Don't forget when a certain British tabloid newspaper published a full-page countdown to Emma Watson's 16th birthday to celebrate the day she would finally become 'legal.'"

    —u/Clbull

    9. Finn Wolfhard

    "Don't do that. Ignore him."
    AnhTranMinhLodge / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    "He's 20 now, but I've heard grown women sexualize him since he was a child. It's gross."

    —u/Katniprose45

    "Like when some guy said he had the best porn name ever and Joe Keery and David Harbour were trying to comfort him in the background and telling him to ignore it…people are sickos."

    —u/HumanTacoz

    "All his Instagram comments are older women being absolutely repulsive in the comments. He’s 20 now, but when he was underage, it was no better. Really sad."

    —u/gemologyst

    "Saw a lot of ‘call me in four years’ comments from women back when he was 14. Sick fucks."

    —u/TerokNor67

    10. Taylor Lautner

    Closeup of Taylor Lautner
    Summit Entertainment[

    "What I think is that it's ok to get a crush on a celebrity, but once you start openly sexualizing them, you're crossing a dangerous boundary."

    —u/JordyMate87

    "Your mention of Taylor Lautner reminds me of the cringey 'Twilight Moms.' I said to my own mom (NOT a Twilight Mom), 'Good lord, can you imagine if the genders were reversed?!' There would have been a stampede."

    —u/191ZipCodeExPat

    11. Justin Bieber

    "I feel violated right now."
    ABC

    Suggested by u/WishboneInformal

    "I’m not into his music, but I absolutely feel for him and how he was overly sexualized as a child star. Made worse because a lot of people loved to hate him. Bullying, inappropriate comments in interviews (many of which you can still see on YouTube), and constant harassment played out for all to see and…nobody said anything."

    —u/Kiwizoo

    "Wasn't he once touched without consent on a stage and nobody had a problem with it?"

    —u/Clueless_Shrek

    "2012. American Music Awards. ... Wild how 10 years ago, no one batted an eye. It’s honestly a miracle how normal he is considering how much he’s gone through."

    —u/Moms_Linguini

    12. Sydney Sweeney

    Sydney Sweeney and comments about her
    HBO Max

    Suggested by BasicallyIJustDont

    "Reading the reviews for her recent movie, Reality, really shows how degenerate her followers are. Imagine leaving negative reviews just because she didn't strip for the movie."

    —u/refrainblue

    "She was really good in it. I immediately noticed those comments on clips and trailers, too: shockingly overrun with people expressing contempt for how she looked in it. First off, she looked fine, like a normal person, just not glammed up, because that was the character she was playing. Like, what? Looking the most beautiful you're capable of looking is not always the point, and is especially not the point when you're an actor playing various types of people in various circumstances. Reality is just a person, and that movie just depicts this day in her life — it would be weird and counterproductive to have her hair and makeup and costume be anything other than what it was. Where do these people think we are when making comments like that? Honestly idiotic in addition to being misogynistic."

    —u/kevinsshoe

    13. Millie Bobby Brown

    Screengrab of a Reddit thread about Millie Bobby Brown
    Jun Sato / WireImage via Getty Images, u/Incognito_Igloo / Reddit

    Suggested by u/WishboneInformal

    The subreddit literally dedicated to sexualizing Millie was disgusting, and they weren't the only ones counting down to her 18th birthday. Brown has even spoken about noticing a difference in the way people and the media treated her after her birthday, calling it "gross." She continued, "I think it's just a very good representation of what's going on in the world and how young girls are sexualized. And so I have been dealing with that, but also have been dealing with that for forever."

    14. Sofía Vergara

    "You must've had so much milk, right?"
    Sirius XM / Via tiktok.com

    "It hurts quite a lot because along with being sexualized, she's not treated with respect. Also she's fetishized a lot for being a Latina."

    —u/Sharp-Temperature224

    15. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen

    Screen grabs of Howard Stern and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
    Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images via Getty Images, Jon Kopaloff / FilmMagic via Getty Images

    Suggested by u/anras2

    At 17, they appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, captioned "America's Favorite Fantasy." Their own publicist pointed out, "They're a fantasy if you're a 6-year-old girl, and perhaps, they're a fantasy if you're a 50-year-old man." Multiple websites were dedicated to counting down to the twins' 18th birthday. Just before their birthday, NBC News wrote, "They contain the innocence of children and the sultriness of sexpots" and "We are jealous of Mary-Kate and Ashley, of the way they seem always to be touching in photographs — Mary-Kate kisses Ashley's shoulder; Ashley smushes her forehead against Mary-Kate's cheek. ... Their constant touching of each other seems seductive, but unintentionally so." Howard Stern also made numerous comments about them on his show, including, "Now, normally I don't look at a 13-year-old and sexualize them, I don't, but these two are pieces of ass. They've grown up so perfect."

    16. Dolly Parton

    A man commenting on Dolly Parton
    60 Minutes Australia / YouTube / Nine Network / Via youtube.com

    "Dolly Parton was one of the best singer/songwriters in America through the ‘70s and ‘80s, and a lovely, smart, gracious person. All you ever heard about her, from late-night comedians and interviewers, was her large breasts. She handled it with grace, though, and just kept on being amazing. Check out the Trio albums she did with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt in ‘87 and ‘99…glorious."

    —u/FoxyInTheSnow

    17. Pamela Anderson

    Pamela Anderson in "Baywatch"
    NBC

    "It feels like everything that was ever about her was her appearance or sexuality. I imagine it's hard to go through life like that."

    —u/604Ataraxia

    "She was big when I was growing up, and it seemed every week there was a new men’s magazine with her on the cover. Power to her for making bank, but it makes you wonder if that’s the direction she wanted her career to go."

    —u/Professional_Ad6822

    "She was doing her best to survive in a world with whatever tools she had. She was objectified, dehumanized, and abused in almost every way a person can imagine."

    —u/SeasonPositive6771

    18. Scarlett Johansson

    Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner in an interview
    extratv / YouTube / Via youtube.com

    —u/LawrenceChernin2

    "It doesn't help her get taken seriously as an actress. That was never more on display than when she'd go on press junkets or panels with the other actors from the Avengers movies and all the guys are getting art of acting questions and then they ask about how ScarJo stays in such good shape or fits into the spandex.

    Studios are also clearly very keen on using her sexuality to sell their movies. ... And even after doing films like Her and Under the Skin where she's lauded for her performances, she still gets asked the diet and costume questions that her male costars almost never get asked."

    —u/TheArcReactor

    19. And finally...Billie Eilish

    Billie Eilish onstage
    Jeff Kravitz / FilmMagic via Getty Images

    "People would deadass start countdowns to her 18th birthday so that their horny thoughts about her would be deemed socially acceptable. She was already a very insecure teenager who didn't want to be objectified. And yet, when she finally started feeling more free in her skin, she got a ton of shit for it."

    —u/Hungry_Pollution4463

    "She purposely wore baggy clothes to not get sexualized. Then, the second there were pictures of her wearing tight clothes, she was sexualized."

    —u/OrangeTree81