11 Famous Women Who The Internet Suddenly Decided To Hate

Welcome to the internet, where every now and then, people collectively decide that they despise a celebrity* for no valid reason.

*More often than not, the celeb is a woman.

It’s like social media’s “White Boy of the Month,” except it’s the total opposite.

For context: Over time, the public has become very aware of the way famous women have historically been — and still are — mistreated in the public eye, especially by the media in the 2000s . That mistreatment has always been rooted in misogyny — and it has more recently translated into people hating on female celebrities for no apparent reason. In recent years, numerous famous women have been built up by the public, only to have their former fans later turn on them and celebrate their downfall.

Here’s a (slightly depressing) roundup of famous women who once received unjustified onslaughts of hate.

1. Anne Hathaway

In perhaps the most notable example of a woman receiving heaps of hate for literally no reason, Anne went from loved to suddenly despised by numerous internet users in what became known as #HathaHate during the early 2010s. Why, you ask? Simply because people perceived her to be a “try-hard,” aka too perfect and therefore clearly annoying. Looking back on the hate in 2022, Anne said, “Ten years ago, I was given an opportunity to look at the language of hatred from a new perspective. When your self-inflicted pain is suddenly somehow amplified back at you at, say, the full volume of the internet… It’s a thing.”

2. Jennifer Lawrence

Interestingly, Jennifer was pitted against Anne for a while during the #HathaHate era, with numerous articles comparing her famous, then-loved “cool girl” persona with Anne’s. However, the internet eventually got tired of her, too, prompting widespread, unjustified hate toward the Silver Linings Playbook star. Jennifer ended up retreating from the public eye , eventually admitting that she’d done so to protect her “sanity.” “I just think everybody had gotten sick of me. I’d gotten sick of me. It had just gotten to a point where I couldn’t do anything right,” she said in 2021.

3. Jennifer Lopez

J.Lo has had her fair share of controversial moments, but there’s no doubt that the hate directed toward her can get extreme. Whether it’s her relationship history, singing ability, or Bronx accent, people always seem to find a way to make fun of her online — to the point that she recently reportedly detailed feeling “misunderstood.”

4. Kendall Jenner

Similarly, Kendall has long faced a large amount of hate online — and as divisive as she and the rest of the Kardashian/Jenners can be, there’s no doubt that it can seem unfair at times. After years of being branded a “pick me” and a “mean girl,” Kendall addressed the constant criticism during an episode of The Kardashians , stating: “Anything I do gets hate. I could be walking down the street doing absolutely nothing, and somebody always has something bad to say.”

5. Jenna Ortega

Jenna shot to fame in 2022 after starring in the hit Netflix series Wednesday . Not long after, internet users got tired of her and began criticizing the same dark and moody energy that she initially became so loved for. Things got worse when Jenna revealed she’d actively fought to change some of the cringe lines in the original Wednesday script, prompting social media users to brand her unprofessional and immature .

6. Sydney Sweeney

Before the controversy around her family’s political views or her financial affairs , Sydney faced a wave of relentless criticism for none other than her Euphoria nude scenes and her appearance. Not only did the actor have to deal with people tagging her family members in screenshots of her sex scenes online, but she once broke down in tears as she trended on X (formerly Twitter) for “being ugly.”

7. Halle Bailey

Halle faced heaps of racist backlash when she was cast as Ariel in The Little Mermaid in 2019, and she has since been ridiculed online over her relationship with rapper DDG and her choice to keep her pregnancy last year a secret.

8. Millie Bobby Brown

After shooting to fame on Netflix’s Stranger Things , Millie was branded annoying by numerous internet users who felt she was “over the top.” The online trolling got so bad that Millie once admitted she was scared to walk down the street. “It’s really hard to be hated on when you don’t know who you are yet,” she told Allure in 2022. “So it’s like, ‘What do they hate about me? ’Cause I don’t know who I am.’ It’s almost like, ‘OK, I’m going to try being this today.’ [And then they say], ‘Oh, no, I hate that.’ ‘OK. Forget that. I’m going to try being this today.’ ‘Oh, my God! I hate when you do that.’ Then you just start shutting down because you’re like, ‘Who am I meant to be? Who do they need me to be for them?’”

9. Brie Larson

When Brie played the titular role in Captain Marvel (2019), aka the first woman-led superhero movie from Marvel, she sadly faced misogynistic backlash from MCU fans. Before the film was even released, it received tons of negative reviews from trolls personally attacking Brie, while several internet users mocked her appearance and suggested she wasn’t suitable for the role.

10. Angelina Jolie

Angelina is widely loved today, but she was undoubtedly villainized throughout the early 2000s — namely due to her controversial failed marriages with Billy Bob Thornton and Jonny Lee Miller. Years later, when Brad Pitt split from Jennifer Aniston, everyone instantly blamed Angelina, whom Brad had fallen in love with while shooting Mr. & Mrs. Smith . Then, when Brad and Angie eventually divorced, some blogs went so far as to brand her the most hated woman in Hollywood, while outlets published articles painting her as manipulative .

11. Anna Gunn

After playing Skyler White (aka, sadly, one of TV’s most hated characters ) in the hit series Breaking Bad , Anna faced a wave of vitriol from fans of the show who associated her with her onscreen figure. In 2013, Anna penned an essay for the New York Times about the onslaught of hate. She wrote in part, “As the hatred of Skyler blurred into loathing for me as a person, I saw glimpses of an anger that, at first, simply bewildered me.”

So, there we have it — just a handful of examples of unjust hate against famous women. If you can think of more examples of times women were unfairly turned against, please drop them in the comments below.

More on this

• Anne Hathaway Got Candid About Dealing With All That "Hathahate" Almost A Decade Ago Alex Gurley · Oct. 18, 2022
• Jennifer Lawrence Explained Why She "Vanished" From The Spotlight After Opening Up About How People Had Got "Sick" Of Her And "Were Not Pleased" By Her Existence Ben Henry · Nov. 23, 2021
• Millie Bobby Brown Explained Why She Doesn't Actually Have Any Social Media On Her Phone, And It's A Depressing Look Into What It's Like Being A Child Star Today Natasha Jokic · Aug. 10, 2022