Anne Hathaway Defends Jennifer Lawrence Against the Internet

Raechal Shewfelt
·Editor, Yahoo Entertainment
image

Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence (Photo: Getty Images)

Mess with Jennifer Lawrence, and you’re going to have to deal with Anne Hathaway. The actress took to Facebook on Friday to defend her fellow celebrity, who’s been taking some heat since a moment in the press room at Sunday night’s Golden Globe Awards.

The moment happened after Lawrence accepted the award for Best Actress in a Comedy for her performance in Joy. While making an appearance in the press room, Lawrence joked around with a reporter from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association about being on his phone while he was asking a question. Her comment to him that, “You can’t live your whole life behind your phone, bro,” triggered a negative online response. People said J.Law’s behavior was rude and entitled. This despite the fact that it was later reported the moment was taken out of context and that the reporter was laughing while speaking to Lawrence.

Needless to say, the situation didn’t sit well with Hathaway.

“Dear the Internet, It’s become pretty clear that the Jennifer Lawrence ‘scolding’ was taken out of context and that she was dryly joking with a journalist who was indeed using his phone to take photos of her,” Hathaway wrote. “Let’s not continue the sad but common practice of building people — especially women — up just to viciously tear them down when we perceive them to have misstepped. Jennifer is a beautiful, talented, wildly successful, popular, FOUR TIME OSCAR NOMINATED young woman. Please let us not punish her for these things. Sincerely, A J-Law fan #‎supportstrongwomen #‎imwithher #‎whycantwegiveloveonemorechance”

Related: What Really Happened When Jennifer Lawrence 'Called Out’ a Reporter at the Golden Globes

Hathaway — who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar herself, the same year Lawrence won one for Best Actress — has experienced her own trouble with the online community. People who dislike her even have a nickname: Hathahaters. News stories have been written theorizing why people dislike her so much. Interestingly, New York Magazine even asked in 2013 what makes people loathe Hathaway and like Lawrence.

Hathaway explained in a November 2014 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show how she learned to deal with that.

“I listened [to the bullies] at first. I couldn’t help it,” she said. “You try to shut it off, and I couldn’t … and then I realized why I couldn’t is, I hadn’t learned to love myself yet. I hadn’t gotten there yet. And if you don’t love yourself when someone else says horrible things to you, part of you is always going to believe them.”

Eventually, Hathway said, she was able to move past other people’s negative opinions.

“As Matthew McConaughey, my Interstellar co-star would say, 'I just kept living,'” she said. "And it’s been a really cool journey. Maybe not every minute of every day, but way more than I used to, I have a tremendous amount of love and compassion for everyone else, and best of all I have it for myself.”

Definitely for Jennifer Lawrence.