Already have an account?
Get back to the

Anne Hathaway on Dealing With Internet Bullies: “I Hadn’t Learned to Love Myself Yet”

Anne Hathaway address bullies on Ellen
Anne Hathaway told Ellen DeGeneres that she used to be sensitive to Internet bullies, but she's moved past their hateful comments -- find out how.

Haters gonna hate, but Anne Hathaway loves herself. The Oscar winner stopped by The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday, Nov. 6, where the two discussed the backlash and taunting she’s received from cyberbullies.

“For whatever reason, and it’s a small group, trust me, but they’re loud,” DeGeneres noted. “I went through this, and voices that don’t like you and say mean things really stick with you for some reason, more than voices that say you’re great.”

Related: PHOTOS: Celebs fight back on social media

Hathaway received a deluge of hateful comments on the World Wide Web following her Best Supporting Actress win for Les Miserables at the 2013 Academy Awards.

The star, 31, whose impressive film credits include The Princess Diaries (2001), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), claimed: “I had gotten out of the habit of Googling myself because that’s just a bad idea to ever do that.” One day, she and her friends had an idea for a “Funny or Die” skit on celebrity pregnancy rumors. “So we just Googled ‘pregnancy rumors’ and the story came up… the title of it was ‘Why Does Everyone Hate Anne Hathaway?'”

Related: PHOTOS: Anne Hathaway's style evolution

Ellen and Anne Hathaway

The actress admitted it stung. “Well, I listened at first. I couldn’t help it,” she claimed. “You know, you try to shut it off, and I couldn’t. Then I realized why I couldn’t: I hadn’t learned to love myself yet. I hadn’t gotten there. If you don’t love yourself when someone says horrible things to you, part of you is always going to believe them.”

Related: PHOTOS: Stars who were bullied

Eventually, Hathaway found her “happy ending” by pushing past the surmounting negativity. “So then I was like, ‘Okay. I don’t want to believe these people. I don’t want to agree with them on any level, and I want to figure out who I am. I want to learn who I am. I don’t want to feel like I’m fragile every time I leave the house because I’m so dependent on what other people think about me.'”

Related: PHOTOS: Anne and more celebs without underwear

She said she’s heeded the words of her Interstellar costar and fellow Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey. “I just took a step back, and as [he] would say, ‘I just kept living…'”

“It’s been a really cool journey,” she continued. “I feel like I arrived in a place where, 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, which I never enjoyed before.”

In this article

Got a Tip form close button
Got a tip for US?
We're All Ears for Celebrity Buzz!