Rob Lowe slams ‘horrible’ Brat Pack label: ‘It was designed to belittle us’

Rob Lowe has learned to live with the Brat Pack moniker despite calling it “horrible.”

The “9-1-1: Lone Star” actor, 60, opened up about the infamous label attributed to him and fellow actors Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Andrew McCarthy and Judd Nelson during the start of their careers in the 1980s, in a new interview with People.

The Brat Pack as a concept was born when New York Magazine ran a story on the young actors in June 1985. “Hollywood’s Brat Pack,” the cover shouted above a photo of Lowe, Nelson and Estevez on the set of their movie “St. Elmo’s Fire.”

“The article was horrible,” Lowe told People. “It was a hit piece, there’s no doubt about it. It was designed to belittle us, make us look small, with that journalistic trick of plausible deniability.”

The New York Magazine piece described the Brat Pack as being “to the 1980s what the Rat Pack was to the 1960s — a roving band of famous young stars on the prowl for parties, women and a good time.”

Despite his disdain for the article, he said, “I actually came out okay in it.”

“It was the one night I went home early. What a rarity. So somebody was looking out for me,” he added, referring to the night he and his “St. Elmo’s” co-stars spent with interviewer David Blum.

He added that the Brat Pack label “probably didn’t help our credibility … in the industry.”

But there was a silver lining. “[The] public — at the end of the day, that’s all that matters — never got that memo,” Lowe said regarding the intended derision the title originally held. “They’re like, ‘That sounds cool.'”

“I think I realized that probably quicker than the rest of the [group of actors], that it was a good thing.”

“The Brat Pack is having a moment,” he added, noting that McCarthy’s documentary about the group – “Brats” – “has a lot to do with it.”

“And it couldn’t make me happier,” he said. “It was a seminal point for me becoming comfortable in the space I occupied as an actor, for lack of a better term, and the beginning of a real rocket-ship ride.”

Talking with McCarthy in “Brats,” Lowe reflected on his relationship to the infamous moniker. “There’s always going to be some perception that bumps up against how you see yourself,” he explained.

“No one liked [the Brat Pack label],” he said. “I don’t want to come off seeming like I’m so Pollyanna that I don’t realize or didn’t know at the time what a f – – king disaster and how mean spirited and what an attempt that was to minimize our talents.”

He added that today, “It pains me when I see folks who don’t see how much love is infused into the Brat Pack. It’s nothing but goodwill.”

Asked by McCarthy if the branding will follow him and his ’80s cohort “to the end,” Lowe responded, “It will, for sure.” He went one step further, adding, “it should.”

“We were so lucky to be in the right place at the right time as the movie business was beginning the transition to where it landed and still exists — which is movies made almost exclusively for 18- to 20-year-olds,” he shared.

“Every summer movie that’s out is geared towards that audience. It wasn’t always like that. We were there at that time that it began.”

Reflecting on the impact of the Brat Pack creation, he added, “It changed all of our lives … it changed what entertainment is.”