Anne Hathaway was just 18 years old when she got her big break as Mia Thermopolis in the 2001 movie The Princess Diaries.
At the time, the young actor was warmly welcomed by the general public, and quickly grew a dedicated and adoring fanbase that supported her through other breakout roles in hit films like Brokeback Mountain and The Devil Wears Prada.
But by the time that Anne won her first Academy Award in 2013 for her performance in Les Miserables, seemingly everybody had turned their backs on her.
A decade later, it is clear that there wasn’t really a reason for the so-called “HathaHate” that followed. The beginning of the end can probably be pinned to when she cohosted the 2011 Oscars with James Franco, with her enthusiasm rubbing critics up the wrong way.
And it was that same earnest excitement that sparked backlash during awards season two years later, with Howard Stern saying after her Oscar win: “Let me sum up why people hate Anne Hathaway; first of all she gets a speechwriter to write her speech. She’s overly dramatic at these award shows. She’s always out of breath. She’s even acting when she’s winning an award.”
This appeared to be the overriding consensus, with critic Richard Lawson agreeing: “She’s got this theater kid thing where she adopts the mood of every situation she’s in but wildly overcompensates every time. She always seems like she’s performing, and her favorite act is this overstated humility and graciousness.”
While the hatred was obviously incredibly misguided and uncalled for, it was also relentless and prompted a yearlong hiatus from the star. Upon her return to the spotlight in 2014, she admitted to Huffington Post: “My impression is that people needed a break from me.”
Later that same year, Anne told Harper’s Bazaar that she’d lost out on acting roles because of the public’s disdain for her.
“I had directors say to me, ‘I think you’re great. You’re perfect for this role, but I don’t know how audiences will accept you because of all this stuff, this baggage,’” she said, adding that learning of the hate had felt like being “punched in the gut.”
She went on to say that the experience of being the internet’s punching bag had made her “a way more compassionate and loving person” as she insisted that she doesn’t “feel sorry” for herself.
Anne’s tactic to withdraw from the public eye and wait out the hate train appeared to work, and before long she was back on our screens as people admitted to being wrong about the star.
In October, Anne reflected on the way that she was targeted during a speech at Elle’s Women In Hollywood event. She said: “10 years ago, I was given an opportunity to look at the language of hatred from a new perspective.”
“This was a language I had employed with myself since I was seven,” she went on. “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 what happened, happened, I realized I had no desire to have anything to do with this line of energy. On any level,” Anne added. "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."
"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.
But recently, pop culture fans noticed that the tide was threatening to turn against Anne yet again. And ironically, a red carpet interview from the same Elle event is what triggered the latest discourse.
In the interview, a reporter asked Anne if she had ever spoken about her movie The Devil Wears Prada with Anna Wintour, to which she said she had. The journalist then pressed: “And what has she shared?”
“Why would I tell you?” Anne playfully laughed in response. The reporter replied: “Because I’m a fan and I need to know.”
“I know, but you weren’t there,” Anne said.
The interview clip resurfaced on TikTok earlier this month, and the person who posted it branded Anne “so rude” before reiterating in the caption: “why she being rude 😭”
The video has been viewed more than 6.8 million times and racked up over half a million likes as Anne was branded a “mean girl” by viewers in the comments.
“It’s not what she said it’s how she said it. The reporter wasn’t being impolite so there was no reason for her to respond impolitely,” one person wrote. Another added: “she gives such mean girl vibes, I don't know why people say she's so nice.”
“That was so unnecessary of her both answers lmao,” a third comment read. One more agreed: “omg since when was anne hathaway like that.”
“celebrities acting flabbergasted when people ask about their lives as if they didn’t choose this life,” someone else wrote. Another said of Anne: “Her energy’s always been off to me.”
“Anne Hathaway gives mean girl vibes,” one more agreed. Another user claimed: “I feel like this is a ‘never meet your idols’ moment.”
But the video and a screengrab of the cruel comments received a starkly different reaction when posted to Twitter. Here, many argued that Anne was under unfair scrutiny and that other celebrities would have got away with the exact same response.
