13 Gutting Celebrity Confessions About How Terrible Hollywood And Being Famous Actually Are

This post mentions topics like sexual assault and child sexual abuse.

Jennifer once recalled a “degrading” experience she’d had while shooting a film that she chose not to name. She shared, “One girl before me had already been fired for not losing enough weight fast enough. And, during this time, a female producer had me do a nude lineup with about five women who were much, much thinner than me. And we all stood side-by-side with only paste-ons covering our privates. After that degrading and humiliating lineup, the female producer told me I should use the naked photos of myself as inspiration for my diet.”

Jennifer said that she later spoke to another producer about the horrific experience, only to be told that he thought she was “perfectly fuckable.” And even though Jen was afraid to speak up in case she was branded “difficult,” she noted that she was labeled a “nightmare” regardless.

Elijah, who starred in Lord of the Rings at age 18, has talked openly about child exploitation within Hollywood while advocating for the better protection of young actors. “Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood. It was all organized. There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind,” he alleged in 2016. “There is darkness in the underbelly. What bums me about these situations is that the victims can’t speak as loudly as the people in power. That’s the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people: They can be squashed, but their lives have been irreparably damaged.”

In 2017, Charlize branded Hollywood as “caveman-like” as she called out the fact that women are rarely allowed to direct films with big budgets. “We’ve had moments like this, where women really showcase themselves and kind of break glass ceilings. And then we don’t sustain it. Or there’s one movie that doesn’t do well, and all of a sudden, no one wants to make a female-driven film,” she said. “And look, I am ashamed that I’m part of an industry that has never allowed a woman to work with a budget higher than what the budget has been on Wonder Woman. That’s so fucking caveman-like. I am always hoping that this is the movie that’s going to change it and keep it for us.”

Joaquin has long shared his discomfort around fame. In a 2014 interview, the Joker star admitted he feels terrified when fans approach him in the street for photos, and he has repeatedly acknowledged the lack of privacy that comes with being an A-List actor: “It’s a cliché, but fame is often a double-edged sword. There’s a loss of privacy, a loss of anonymity. But then there’s also the flip side — the public acknowledgement and appreciation for what you’ve done,” he said in 2023.

Megan, who started her acting career at age 15, has branded Hollywood “misogynistic” while discussing being objectified and sexualized in the industry at a young age. She said in 2022, “I think that I was ahead of the #MeToo movement by almost a decade. I was always speaking out against some of the abusive, misogynistic, patriarchal things that were going on in Hollywood back in 2008 and 2009, way before people were ready to embrace that or tolerate it. And I actually got ridiculed for doing it.”

Octavia has highlighted pay inequality across Hollywood, once recalling the time fellow actor Jessica Chastain helped her earn a much higher salary on a project. “[Jessica] was like, ‘It’s time women get paid the same as men!’” Octavia said in 2018, per Vanity Fair. “We were dropping f-bombs and getting it all out there. And then I said, ‘But here’s the thing, women of color, on that spectrum, we make far less than white women...’ She was quiet. She had no idea that that’s what it was like for women of color.” Jessica later tweeted of Octavia, “She had been underpaid for so long. When I discovered that, I realized that I could tie her deal to mine to bring up her quote. Men should start doing this with their female costars.”

Back in the 1990s, Gillian fought hard for equal pay with her The X-Files co-star David Duchovny. However, years later, she found herself fighting the same battle again after she was offered half of David’s wage for the 2016 revival series. “Especially in this climate of women talking about the reality of [unequal pay] in this business, I think it’s important that it [the pay gap] gets heard and voiced,” she told The Daily Beast. “It was shocking to me, given all the work that I had done in the past to get us to be paid fairly. I worked really hard toward that and finally got somewhere with it.”

“Even in interviews in the last few years, people have said to me, ‘I can’t believe that happened, how did you feel about it, that is insane.’ And my response always was, ‘That was then, this is now.’ And then it happened again! I don’t even know what to say about it,” she added.

Similarly, Arden was sadly offered less than half of the salary of her ex-Teen Wolf costars to appear in the 2023 movie. After (rightfully) declining to join, Arden — who was the only woman of color among the main young cast — told The Cut, “I could probably, off the top of my head, think of over 10 Asian-American actors I know who were paid significantly less than their counterparts,” she continued. “Sometimes you don’t have a choice to say ‘no.’ Sometimes you just need it. You’ve got bills to pay.”

In 2017, Reese opened up about experiencing assault at the hands of an industry director when she was 16. She said during a speech at Elle's Women in Hollywood event, “I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly and I find it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate a lot of the feelings that I’ve been having about anxiety, honesty, the guilt for not speaking up earlier. [I feel] true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment.”

Katherine was famously cast out of Hollywood in 2009 after calling out the alleged “cruel” working conditions on the Grey’s Anatomy set. She later shared of her decision to leave the show, “I think with Grey’s at that time, I didn’t feel I had any other choice. I was breaking, it was breaking me, and I was young…I mean, I was vibrating at a level that I was gonna get sick and, you know, I did get mentally sick.”

In 2021, Gabrielle opened up about pay inequality in Hollywood, particularly when it comes to actors of colour. “As Black actresses, there's almost shame involved because we get paid so much less,” she said, before alleging that some studios are purposely deceitful about what others are earning in order to lowball their actors. “They assume, justifiably [and] rightly so, that none of us are talking and that's how [we] screw each other,” she shared.

Amanda once recalled being paid a literal tenth of what her male costar was earning for a big-budget film, despite the fact that they were both super well-known in Hollywood at the time. “I think people think that just because I’m easy-going and game to do things, I’ll just take as little as they offer … It’s not about how much you get, it’s about how fair it is,” she said.

Taraji broke down in tears in 2023 as she opened up about constantly fighting for equal pay in Hollywood, particularly as a Black woman. “I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, [and] getting paid a fraction of the cost. I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired,” she said. “I’m only human. Every time I do something and break another glass ceiling, when it’s time to renegotiate, I’m at the bottom again like I never did what I just did, and I’m tired. I’m tired. It wears on you. What does that mean? What is that telling me? If I can’t fight for them coming up behind me, then what the fuck am I doing?”

Feel free to share more examples in the comments.

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE, which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. 

If you are concerned that a child is experiencing or may be in danger of abuse, you can call or text the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-2253 (4.A.CHILD); service can be provided in over 140 languages.