• Jennifer Love Hewitt, 45, is speaking out against ageism in Hollywood.
• She told Fox News fans have a “hard time” accepting that she no longer looks like she did in her 20s.
• Age-based discrimination isn’t just a problem in showbiz; it’s prevalent in other workplaces, too.

Jennifer Love Hewitt is speaking up about the unrealistic expectations that come with growing up in showbiz.

“I feel like fans pick this you at this age that they love that they think represents you, and you’re never supposed to grow beyond that,” Hewitt, 45, told Fox News Digital, recalling a quote that she heard Taylor Swift use in her documentary.

“For me, it was like me in my 20s. People seem to have a really hard time accepting that I’m just not, that I don’t look that way anymore,” she said.

Hewitt is best known for starring in the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” thriller franchise in the late 1990s and rom-coms such as “Heartbreakers” in the early 2000s.

Hewitt said she thinks aging is nothing to be ashamed of.

“I’m kind of going with it. Age is age,” Hewitt said. “I think women really come into this, like, acceptance of themselves and like this comfortability in their 40s that is beautiful.”

“Whatever it is, you just want to have the freedom to be whoever you are at that age,” she continued.

In December 2023, Hewitt took to the “Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum” podcast to address claims that she was trying to hide her real appearance after she posted a selfie with a filter.

“A bunch of people were like, ‘Jennifer Love Hewitt is unrecognizable. She’s unrecognizable, so she’s gone to filters because she doesn’t want us to know how bad she actually looks now in her 40s,'” Hewitt told the podcast’s host, Michael Rosenbaum, recalling the criticism she received. “This is crazy, right?”

Hewitt isn’t the only female actor who has spoken up about ageism in Hollywood.

In March, Kirsten Dunst told Marie Claire she took a two-year break from acting because she was typecast and only offered “sad mom” roles.

In an interview with Variety in September, Kathy Bates said she was able to have a long acting career only because she didn’t fit societal standards of beauty.

“I have to say I give an inner wink when I see friends who have been beauty queens who are no longer working because of ageism, and in my case, I’ve been able to continue working for many years because I don’t look like that,” Bates said.

But ageism isn’t just a problem in Hollywood; it’s prevalent in other workplaces, too.

A study of 913 women published in Harvard Business Review in June 2023 found that women in leadership roles face workplace age discrimination at every age bracket.

Discrimination against older workers cost the US economy an estimated $850 billion in GDP in 2018, per a 2020 report from the AARP — formerly the American Association of Retired Persons — and the Economist Intelligence Unit.

A representative for Hewitt did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.