Jennifer Love Hewitt is getting candid about the unexpected reaction she received earlier this year after debuting a new hair cut and color that left fans claiming she was "unrecognizable."
Back in August, the 9-1-1 actress, 44, showed off her new look in a since-deleted Instagram post revealing she had abandoned her long, chocolate brown tresses in favor of a red-hued bob.
However, fans instead paid far more attention to her appearance – which she said was altered with a filter – and now she's addressing the unexpectedly negative response she received.
Speaking on the Inside of You podcast, Jennifer recalled: "I was getting my hair done and I had not a stitch of makeup on," before stating: "So, I threw on a filter. I really gave it no thought."
Her innocent use of a filter however quickly sparked backlash from netizens, and the Can't Hardly Wait star said: "A bunch of people were like, 'Jennifer Love Hewitt is unrecognizable,'" and referenced comments like: "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."
"This is crazy, right?" she added, before remembering how her effort to make light of the situation by ironically sharing more photos with "over the top" filters only made it worse.
At the time, she joked on her Instagram Stories: "So many people said I look different," before maintaining: "I look the same as always. Couldn't look more natural… Filters don't change you that much."
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Still, during the podcast she further recalled: "They were like, 'Well, now she's just defending herself and why is she defending?'" adding: "I realized I can do no right."
The The Client List alum ultimately confessed it would be "a lie" to pretend she doesn't pay attention to internet criticism, and candidly admitted: "Aging in Hollywood is really hard. You can't do anything right."
Jennifer began her career in Hollywood when she was only ten years old, when she joined the cast of Disney Channel series Kids Incorporated, which ran from 1989 to 1991.
She subsequently went from child star to teen It Girl in the 90s thanks to roles in teen drama Party of Five, and most notably as Julie James in 1997's I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequel, plus as Amanda Becket in Can't Hardly Wait.
She lives in Los Angeles' Pacific Palisades with her husband and former The Client List co-star Brian Hallisay, 45, who she married in 2013. The two share three kids, daughter Autumn James, ten, and sons Atticus James, eight, and Aidan James, two.
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