17 Famous Women Who Deserve An Apology For How Hollywood And The Media Treated Them

Both the entertainment industry and the press have an unfortunately long history of mistreating women, no matter their age. In recent years, these women have been speaking out.

Here are 17 young female celebs who deserved way better from Hollywood and the media:

Some entries contain mention of sexual assault and eating disorders.

1.When 11-year-old Kirsten Dunst filmed Interview with a Vampire, she had to kiss 31-year-old Brad Pitt onscreen. While promoting the film, she told Entertainment Tonight about how "gross" the kiss was.

Here's the full interview clip:

Entertainment Tonigth / Via Twitter: @DunstUpdates

2.On Twitter in 2023, former child actor Alexa Nikolas alleged that, when she was around 15 or 16, then-24-year-old Jonah Hill forced himself on her at a house party. She added, "This type of predatory behavior was hyper normalized when I was a kid."

Jonah Hill's legal representatives told the Independent that her claims were "a complete fabrication" and "never happened."

Previously, Alexa has spoken out about her experience working on Zoey 101 at 12 and how she didn't "feel safe" around series creator Dan Schneider. In a 2022 Instagram Live from a protest she held outside Nickelodeon, she said, "I did not feel protected at Nickelodeon as a child, personally, I'm demanding that Nickelodeon starts protecting children and not predators."

She's also the founder of Eat Predators, an organization that advocates for survivors of sexual abuse. The org's mission is "to bring an end to the pervasive cover-up of sexual abuse and predatory behavior within the music and entertainment industry."

Here's the full video from her protest:

3.When Raven-Symoné was 7, she was barred from eating certain foods, such as bagels, at craft services on set, and she was told she was "getting fat" by people she worked with.

On a 2015 episode of The View, she said, "I'm not gonna put them on blast, but that's what I was told at that young of an age, even up until I got up to 180 pounds on That's So Raven. You know, you put nasty stuff in front of me or you put these images of women that I'll never aspire to, of course I'm gonna get depressed. It's more than just the food."

4.At 14, Brooke Shields starred in The Blue Lagoon, which required her to spend most of filming with only her hair covering her breasts. In her documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, she said that director Randal Kleiser was trying to turn the film into a "reality show" and that he "wanted to sell [her] actual sexual awakening."

On The Drew Barrymore Show, Brooke said she declined the director's calls after the documentary released. Then, she more broadly called out the male directors who treated her as an underage sex object early in her career.

You can watch the full clip below:

5.At 9, JoJo Siwa joined the cast of Dance Moms. Her instructor, Abby Lee Miller, was known for treating her young students harshly. On one episode, she told her dance class, "I asked each of you to do a homework assignment, I wanted you to write about JoJo; reasons she should not be part of the Abby Lee Dance Company." Then, she had the other girls read off their criticisms of JoJo.

As JoJo held back tears, Abby Lee told her, "You're lucky to even be a guest here at the ALDC. If you're so good, you don't really need to be a part of the Abby Lee Dance Company." Then, to the others, she shouted, "She deserves nothing! Don't have an attitude that you are entitled in this world, you deserve nothing."

At 19, JoJo shared the episode clip on her TikTok with the caption, "When people try and hurt me, but this was my childhood."

Lifetime / JoJo Siwa / Via tiktok.com

6.On her 16th birthday, Millie Bobby Brown shared a video montage of negative headlines about her to Instagram. In the caption, she wrote, "The last few years haven't been easy, I'll admit that. There are moments I get frustrated from the inaccuracy, inappropriate comments, sexualization, and unnecessary insults that ultimately have resulted in pain and insecurity for me. But not ever will I be defeated."

She continued, "I'll continue doing what I love and spreading the message in order to make change. Let's focus on what needs changing, and I hope this video informs you on the things that go on behind the scenes of the headlines and flashing lights."

Similarly, when she was 15, she seemingly called out critics who said her SAG Awards outfit was "too mature" for her. She told Harper's Bazaar, "It's always difficult to dress for a red carpet event because a lot of people have opinions, and unfortunately, you say you won't listen to it, but you actually kind of have to. For me, I sit there and think, I'm not going to listen to what they have to say, journalists or whoever wants to write badly about my inappropriate outfit."

On her evolving style, she added, "I would really enjoy wearing more fitted clothes now. I feel like I'm becoming someone and being a woman, so I just want to show that."

7.When Vanessa Hudgens was 18, her nude photos were leaked online. She was made to release an apology statement, saying she was "embarrassed over this situation and regret[s] having ever taken these photos." Fellow Disney star Joe Jonas told Vulture he "heard that she had to be in the Disney offices for a whole day because they were trying to figure out how to keep her on lockdown."

Joe continued, "We'd hear execs talking about it, and they would tell us that they were so proud of us for not making the same mistakes, which made us feel like we couldn’t ever mess up."

Reflecting on the situation 13 years later, Vanessa told Cosmopolitan UK, "It was a really traumatizing thing for me. It's really fucked up that people feel like they are entitled enough to share something that personal with the world."

She continued, "As an actor, you completely lose all grip of your own privacy, and it's really sad. It feels like that shouldn't be the case, but unfortunately, if enough people are interested, they're going to do everything they can to get to know as much about you as they can, which is flattering, I guess, but then people take it too far and end up divulging things that should be personal."

8.When Rihanna was 17, she was subjected to rumors that Jay-Z was cheating on Beyoncé with her. However, 10 years later, her ex-publicist, Jonathan Hay, admitted to making up the story "out of desperation to help break 'Pon de Replay.'"

He told J. Randy Taraborrelli, the author of Becoming Beyonce: The Untold Story, "It was reckless, and I didn't think it was going to work. I was just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what would stick."

9.On High Low with EmRata, Bella Thorne said, "I had a director give me feedback once, and I was 10. The casting director calls my agent, and the agent calls my mom, and they're like, 'So, she's not moving forward because the director felt like she was flirting with him, and it made him really uncomfortable.' ... What the fuck are you talking about, man? I don’t give a fuck what the fuck I said... She is 10 years old. Why would you ever think that?"

She also said, "One time, I almost got fired off of Disney Channel 'cause I was 14, and I wore a two-piece on the beach. This stylist that I was hanging out with put this chain on me — it was like a body chain. I don't know, I don't care. There was a fan, they got a photo of me on the beach. I almost got fired. It was all over the media, it was literally viral at that time."

10.During her Disney Channel days, Demi Lovato worked practically nonstop. She filmed a movie and a season of a TV show, recorded an album, and went on tour every year for three years. On Call Her Daddy, she said, "There was this extreme workload that I think put a lot of pressure on us, and that's why some of us turned to... I personally turned to, 'If you're going to work me like an adult, I'm going to party like an adult.' That at 16 wasn't healthy at all."

They also said, "At a certain point, I was paying for the roof over my whole family's head, and my dad had quit his job to become my manager so his income was coming from me. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and there was just that pressure of 'I'm paying for everything, and like, I need to keep going because if things start to disappear, so does the finances.'"

During a 2020 Sonny with a Chance virtual reunion, Demi spoke about being overworked while also having an eating disorder. They said, "I was underweight and freezing... I would have people over for meetings on my lunch breaks, because that's how much I worked. People would come in, and I'd be covered in a blanket on the couch, and they were like, 'Why is it 80 degrees in here?' I would be like, 'Because I'm freezing.' They would be like, 'Oh, my God, what's wrong with you?'"

She also said, "I was so miserable and angry, too, because I felt like I was being overworked."

Here's the full video, with this part starting around the 19:44 mark:

11.In 2022, Kate Winslet told the Sunday Times, "When I was younger, my agent would get calls saying, 'How's her weight?'"

She also called out journalists and fans who claimed her weight was the reason Jack couldn't take refuge on the door with Rose at the end of Titanic. On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, she said, "Apparently, I was too fat. Why were they so mean to me? They were so mean. I wasn't even fucking fat. If I could turn back the clock, I would've used my voice in a completely different way."

"I would have absolutely said to journalists, I would have responded, I would have said, 'Don’t you dare treat me like this. I'm a young woman, my body is changing, I'm figuring it out, I'm deeply insecure, I'm terrified, don't make this any harder than it already is.' That’s bullying, you know, and actually borderline abusive, I would say," she said.

12.When Zendaya was 18, she walked the Academy Awards red carpet with her hair styled in locs. Criticizing her, Fashion Police host Giuliana Rancic said, "I feel like she smells like patchouli oil...maybe weed." In a widely praised Instagram response, Zendaya called out her comments for being "not only a large stereotype but outrageously offensive."

She also said, "My wearing my hair in locs on an Oscar red carpet was to showcase them in a positive light to remind people of color that our hair is good enough. To me locs are a symbol of strength and beauty, almost like a lion's mane."

13.When Miley Cyrus was 15, she was publicly shamed over a Vanity Fair photoshoot where she posed with her back exposed. At the time, she released a statement saying she was "so embarrassed" by the pictures, but 10 years later, she shared a picture of a New York Post headline shaming her and tweeted, "I'M NOT SORRY Fuck YOU."

Additionally, starring on Hannah Montana from ages 11–18 "probably caused some body dysmorphia because [she] had been made pretty every day for so long." While shooting, she also had to work 12-hour days. Because the hours were so long, her mother suggested bringing in the kind of lights that are used to treat seasonal affective disorder.

Miley told Marie Claire, "Every morning, I was getting coffee jammed down my throat to wake me up. I just had to keep going, be tough, be strong. Everything happened to me on that set."

14.From ages 7–11, Soleil Moon Frye starred on Punky Brewster. When the show ended, she "was going through puberty, and [she] developed very quickly." She struggled to find age-appropriate jobs and was offered "tits and ass roles," despite being a child, and male producers viewed her as a "wild girl." She also dealt with insecurity and mistreatment from her peers.

In 2021, she told People, "Everywhere I went I was called 'Punky Boobster,' and people would stare directly at my boobs... No one is in charge of how their body develops, but there was so much shame about it."

Then, she decided to undergo breast reduction surgery at 15; she was publicly shamed, but she spoke about it to the press because she wanted "kids to know that it is okay to make a change in order to feel better about themselves."

At the time, she told People, "It was a time when I was confronting my fears about becoming a woman. I needed to be sure that I was doing this for myself — not for producers or boyfriends or my family. It takes a lot of courage."

15.The year Emma Watson turned 16, the British tabloid the Sun published a countdown to her birthday (for context, 16 is the legal age of consent in England).

The harassment she faced from tabloids worsened as she got older. During a HeForShe speech, she said, "I remember on my 18th birthday, I came out of my birthday party and photographers laid down on the pavement and took photographs up my skirt, which were then published on the front of the English tabloid [newspapers] the next morning."

She continued, "If they had published the photographs 24 hours earlier, they would have been illegal, but because I had just turned 18, they were legal."

16.During a speech at the 2018 Women's March, Natalie Portman spoke about the "sexual terrorism" she faced after starring in Léon: The Professional at 13, which led her to build "a reputation for basically being prudish, conservative, nerdy, serious, in an attempt to feel that [her] body was safe and that [her] voice would be listened to."

You can watch her full speech below:

17.And finally, in her late teens, Britney Spears was subjected to invasive questions about her body and her virginity. She had to deal with such speculation into her 20s.

Here's the full clip, with this line of questioning starting at the 2:05 mark:

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673), which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.

The National Eating Disorders Association helpline is 1-800-931-2237; for 24/7 crisis support, text “NEDA” to 741741.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.