As one of Hollywood’s hottest young stars of the 1990s, Jennifer Love Hewitt was poised to become a famous actress with respectable adult roles for decades to come.
But in 2015, the star of the hit television show Ghost Whisperer, ‘that girl’ who was adored by the tabloids, disappeared from Hollywood, leaving fans to wonder about the reasons for her disappearance.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Jennifer Love Hewitt was one of the biggest teen stars of the nineties. Who didn’t fall in love with Jennifer Love Hewitt?
In my opinion, she had the most charming smile, and there was something truly soulful and sincere about her presence.
After appearing in several television commercials, Hewitt, now 44, found her big break at the age of 10 on the Disney Channel show Kids Incorporated (1989-1991).
The show, about young people in a rock band, served as a launching pad for many celebrities, such as Fergie from the Grammy Award-winning Black Eyed Peas, Mario Lopez from Saved by the Bell and Access Hollywood, and Eric Balfour, who starred in 24 and Haven.
Of course, Hewitt was no exception, subsequently becoming a regular on the popular television drama Party of Five, where she starred alongside actors such as Scott Wolf, Matthew Fox, Neve Campbell, and Lacey Chabert.
When Party of Five ended in 1999 after six seasons, Hewitt continued to appear in such iconic films of the 1990s as the teen horror franchise I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997 and 1998) and the teen drama Can’t Hardly Wait (1998).
In 2001, Hewitt starred as Sigourney Weaver’s daughter in the film Heartbreakers. In his review, Roger Ebert criticised her for ‘showing off her assets throughout the film, perhaps as an advertisement for Wonderbra.’
Hewitt, who has had a rocky relationship with the media since she began acting in female roles, said in a 2018 interview with the LA Times: ‘It wasn’t until later, when I took a step back, that I said, ‘Ugh. That’s the worst — that’s not how I want to be remembered.’ She continued: ‘I don’t want my child to one day go on Google and see, “She looks awful” or “She has big boobs and she’s sexy”. I don’t want that to be my image.’
In 2002, she starred alongside Jackie Chan in the spy parody Tuxedo, where she was mostly covered up and occasionally wore a tuxedo with superpowers.
Returning to television in 2005, she played Melinda Gordon, a woman who communicates with the dead, in the series Ghost Whisperer.
Although the series did not win critical acclaim, it retained a loyal fan base. According to Hewitt, she was devastated when Ghost Whisperer was suddenly cancelled in 2010, leaving viewers in limbo.
‘It was a complete shock to me… I thought our next season would be the last because the show had been on for so long,’ she says. ‘It’s hard to come up with something new to intrigue people, but I never in a million years thought it would be our last season.’
In 2012, Hewitt received her first Golden Globe nomination for her leading role in the film The Client List, in which she plays a single mother who earns a living through erotic massage in order to support her children.
While filming The Client List, Hewitt, who is also a singer, met her first and only husband, Brian Hallisay, who plays the deadbeat father of her on-screen children in the series.
In real life, Hallissey is a wonderful husband and father of three children. They married in 2013, and a few days after the wedding, their first daughter, Autumn, was born. In 2015, the couple had a son, Atticus, and in 2021, they had another son, Aiden.
Hewitt, who had worked tirelessly since childhood, stepped out of the spotlight in 2015, explaining that she needed time to be a wife and mother.
There have been many events in my life, and I felt that I needed space and time to be myself. I really enjoyed that break, and I feel like now, in the last few months since I’ve returned to acting, it’s actually done a wonderful thing for me, because it’s made everything I do in my acting/entertainment life no less important, but less like “This is everything and always,” as it was before.”
During her absence, Hewitt was also trying to recover from the death of her mother, who was 67 when she died of cancer in 2012, and that loss, she says, is still ‘very difficult.’
During this difficult period in her life, Jennifer decided to leave Twitter. For some reason, she encountered a tremendous amount of hate on the platform.
Being pregnant, she couldn’t cope with all the negativity and hostility, so she decided to leave Twitter, which caused quite a stir.
‘Unfortunately, due to all the negativity that people send on Twitter, as well as threats to my own well-being, I am sad to say that Twitter is no longer for me,’ Jennifer wrote in 2013.
Starting her career in 1989, Jennifer Love Hewitt has undergone an incredible transformation, both physically and emotionally.
Unfortunately, she has also experienced the negative aspects of Hollywood, celebrity status and objectification by the tabloids. Some online publications went too far and made some truly humiliating and rude comments when photos of Jennifer in a bikini, highlighting her weight gain, were leaked. Some of these publications commented on her bikini photos, saying things like, ‘I know what you ate last summer.’
Jennifer coped with the harsh comments, but she was concerned about how these photos and headlines would affect other girls struggling with their body image.
In her powerful response, she sent a message to all ‘girls with butts, breasts, hips and waists’ and advised them to ‘put on a bikini, wear it and stay strong.’
The Ghost Whisperer star encouraged them to wear bikinis with pride, stay strong, and accept themselves as they are. Jennifer has gone through several stages of struggling with her weight, sought help from personal trainers, and strives to live a healthy lifestyle.
Today, she ‘never looks at the scales’ and doesn’t count calories. The 90s star looks healthier than ever and is still active on social media, regularly sharing news about herself on her Instagram and Facebook accounts.
In 2020, after a three-year hiatus, Hewitt returned to work with ‘new energy and vigour,’ starring in the series 9-1-1, which chronicles the lives of emergency responders.
Starring Maddie Buckley, a former nurse turned 911 operator, the series — now in its eighth season — has provided Hewitt with a platform to develop her profile: from type-cast to mature, experienced actress.
‘I also feel like I have new opportunities as an actress that I didn’t have before. I think it’s so strange that we, especially child actors like I was, are expected to draw on all this life experience that many of us didn’t have,’ Hewitt said in an interview with the LA Times.
‘I feel like I’ve been acting from the heart for many years without really understanding some of the things that I understand now.’
It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 25 years since we fell in love with Jennifer Love Hewitt’s infectious smile in Party of Five!
As a mother of three, she has found a balance between work and family life, and we look forward to seeing her in even more mature roles in the future!
