I vividly remember the moment Anne Hathaway went from revered Hollywood starlet to viral punching bag. It was 2013, and the now 41-year-old had just won her first Academy Award for her portrayal of Fantine in Les Misérables. ‘It came true!’ were the first three words she uttered on stage after collecting her Oscar, smiling down at the award before delivering a speech filled with gratitude for her castmates, crew and family. She was of course implying she had wished for the Oscar win, and that her dream had come true (how dare she!)
With those three simple words, Anne became a meme in all the worst ways. Accused of faux humility, it seemed as though the entire internet suddenly found her intensely unlikable. ‘Hathahaters’ became a trending term, with criticisms ranging from Anne being too rehearsed, self-absorbed or, hilariously, too perfect.
And since being unlikable isn’t the most damning label a woman can wear, the disdain followed Anne for the best part of a decade, right up until – as far as I can tell – the 2018 press tour for Oceans 8 when her adjacency to many hilarious and beloved Hollywood women (the cast also included Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina and Helena Bonham Carter) seemed to turn her reputation on its head. Can you ever dislike a woman who's besties with Rihanna? Apparently not.
But seriously, the fickleness with which Anne’s reputation initially fell and later returned is scary – scary because, despite its shallow nature it directly harmed Anne’s career for years. In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Anne opened up about what it was like being the most hated woman in Hollywood – literally, she says she Googled herself and the top article was titled ‘Why does everyone hate Anne Hathaway?’
‘A lot of people wouldn’t give me roles because they were so concerned about how toxic my identity had become online,’ she said. ‘I had an angel in Christopher Nolan, who did not care about that and gave me one of the most beautiful roles I’ve had in one of the best films that I’ve been a part of.’
Humiliation is such a rough thing to go through.
Anne Hathaway
Anne found the entire ordeal humiliating, she says. ‘Humiliation is such a rough thing to go through. The key is to not let it close you down. You have to stay bold, and it can be hard because you’re like, “If I stay safe, if I hug the middle, if I don’t draw too much attention to myself, it won’t hurt.” But if you want to do that, don’t be an actor. You’re a tightrope walker. You’re a daredevil. You’re asking people to invest their time and their money and their attention and their care into you. So, you have to give them something worth all of those things. And if it’s not costing you anything, what are you really offering?’
In the last year, things have certainly turned around. Twice now she’s gone viral for something markedly more joyous: dancing. In February 2023, she was caught shaking it to Lady Marmalade from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack at the Valentino Paris Fashion Week after party, and again at this year’s Milan Fashion Week, she attended the Versace after party and was filmed busting moves to Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda. TikToker’s of course, loved it. And now Anne can seemingly do no wrong - praised for everything from one viral moment where she graciously turns down a fans request for photos, to keeping her cool during awkward wardrobe malfunction on the Stephen Colbert show recently.
It might be overkill, but frankly, Anne Hathaway deserves all the love. She is one of many famous women for whom we now look back on public perceptions of them in the noughties and wonder, why the hell did they get THAT much hate? She joins the ranks of the severely misunderstood Katherine Heigl, Megan Fox, and Victoria Beckham – to name just a few – whose careers were damaged by, let’s just say it, misogyny. Because it was outright sexism, the reaction to Anne’s Oscar’s win. Can you ever imagine a man receiving backlash for seeming overly emotional, or humble, at winning an Oscar? Oh no, no one would question his humility at all, in fact he’d be everyone’s new #husbandgoals, likely gaining new heart throb roles overnight.
What we witnessed with the takedown of Anne Hathaway is how fragile women’s careers are when the public decide they’re not likeable enough, or 'too perfect' even. It doesn’t matter how incredible you are at acting, how many accolades you have for it, misogyny ultimate defines how much success a woman is allowed to achieve. Thank God for Gen-Z’s obsession with dancing videos, for without it Anne may never have been allowed to earn back her much-deserved favour, but it shouldn’t take that for us all to realise that she has been owed an apology for a decade.