Outrage Over Photos Making Fun of Jennifer Love Hewitt
HAMMER: On SHOWBIZ TONIGHT, the Jennifer Love Hewitt body image backlash. Tonight, more outrage over the shocking attack of the "Ghost Whisper" star`s figure. The former "Party of Five" star is furious saying, "I`m no party of thighs." But why has J-Love`s speaking out against Hollywood`s obsession with body image struck such a chord? SHOWBIZ TONIGHT with the heated debate.</s>PITT: A lot of the attraction before I came out was the fame, the lifestyle.</s>HAMMER: Hold on a second. That guy looks really familiar. Is that really Brad Pitt? Yes, that`s him. Well, tonight, I`ve got an absolutely fascinating look at how Brad has changed from shy guy to dashing dad, someone who does so much charity work. You have got to see this, the startling transformation of Brad Pitt.</s>HAMMER: Welcome back to SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. It`s 30 minutes past the hour. I`m A.J. Hammer, broadcasting tonight and every night from New York City.</s>ANDERSON: And I`m Brooke Anderson. You are watching TV`s most provocative entertainment news show. Tonight SHOWBIZ TONIGHT is demanding, stop the weight madness. Jennifer Love Hewitt`s anger over nasty comments made about her body has sparked tremendous outrage. Photos of her in a bikini were splashed across the Internet with shockingly mean comments about her weight. Well, J Love didn`t waste time. She snapped back, but why has her story struck such a chord with people? Joining us tonight from New York, plus size model Emme, author of "What Are You Hungry For?" Also, celebrity publicist Howard Bragman, founder of Fifteen Minutes Public Relations, and celebrity stylist Nicole Brewer. Emme, Howard, Nicole, welcome to all of you. And I have to say we have been flooded with e-mails over this story, and now we are seeing it everywhere. It has exploded. It`s even the cover of the upcoming "People" magazine that we got our hands on today. It`s Jennifer Love Hewitt, a photo of her in the bikini, and the headline says it all. "Stop calling me fat!" Emme, why do you think her story has triggered such a huge response?</s>EMME ARONSON, PLUS SIZE MODEL: We can feel her pain. We, as a nation, are feeling so poorly about how we look at every turn, every billboard, every show, every media extension, And I think that it`s under a hyper focus, and I really feel that a lot of women are just sick and tired of the scrutiny.</s>ANDERSON: Yes. Scrutinized so incredibly harshly, it`s ridiculous. And I want to take a look now at what Jennifer Love Hewitt wrote on her blog, quote - I love this, "I`ve sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women`s bodies are constantly scrutinized. To set the record straight, I`m not upset for me, but for all of the girls out there that are struggling with their body image."</s>ARONSON: Good for her.</s>ANDERSON: Yes, good for her. "A size 2 is not fat. Nor will it ever be. And being a size zero doesn`t make you beautiful."" She went on to say "To all girls with butts, bobs, hips, and a waist, put on a bikini. Put it on and stay strong." Howard, I applaud her as do so many others. As a publicist, if she were your client, would you say she did the right thing here by speaking out, by defending herself?</s>HOWARD BRAGMAN, CELEBRITY PUBLICIST: Well, as a plus sized publicist, what I want to say I`ve known Jennifer for 20 years, and she`s lived a pretty flawless, wonderful, professional life. And she has this right to speak out, and good for her. She`s a beautiful, wonderful person. The reason she gets these big contracts with companies like Hanes and other huge things is people relate to her. She`s very beautiful, but she`s also real and accessible. She`s not some created model that`s been done in a surgery room or a surgical center in Beverly Hills. She`s real. She`s genuine. I say you go, girl. You stand up for what you are and what you fought for 20 years. And I think almost everybody is on her side in Hollywood.</s>ANDERSON: Absolutely. She`s grounded. She`s very approachable. And, by the way, Howard, you look fantastic.</s>BRAGMAN: It`s the stripes, OK? It`s the vertical stripes.</s>ANDERSON: They`re very flattering. And you know, we know that Jennifer isn`t the first celebrity to speak out like this. So, Nicole, here`s what I am wondering. Why do you think this, in particular, has made such an impact?</s>NICOLE BREWER: Well, I think because it`s absolutely ridiculous. It`s one thing to really just talk about women, you know, and scrutinize their bodies. But, you know, if we start criticizing someone who is a size two, then when is it really going to end?</s>ANDERSON: Exactly. And you know, even the ladies of "The View," including Barbara Walters, have been talking about this. And today, SHOWBIZ TONIGHT asked Barbara Walters why she thinks this has struck such a chord now. Take a look.</s>WALTERS: I think we have a great deal of concern, though, in this country right now about weight - people who are overweight, people who are underweight. I mean, when I was interviewing Posh Spice, she`s the skinniest thing I have seen. And I said would you even take a piece of cake? No, never. I think this kind of extremism is something that has touched a chord and people are very worried about it. They don`t want to see these kinds of examples.</s>ANDERSON: Emme, Barbara makes a really great point there, doesn`t she?</s>ARONSON: I think she does. And I think that the pressure not only on us as everyday people and people also, the entertainers in the industry are feeling the pressure. They don`t want to have their cellulite put on a huge screen in Times Square. They are put under the pressure, also, from their own back - with the backgrounds of the directors saying you must be thin, you must be thin, you must be thin. So, I think that entertainers are getting double whammies right here. I think we need to just take a moment, take a cleansing breath per se and to really reflect as to what is healthy and be able to talk the talk and walk the walk around the boardroom tables before we approve a photo that is going to be put into millions of homes. Before we do different stories or having a certain actresses going on to the screen when they`re clearly unhealthy. We need to take responsibility for those people who are making decisions to put healthy images, diversified, whether it`s skin color as well as body shape.</s>ANDERSON: Great point. And as I mentioned, SHOWBIZ TONIGHT has been flooded with e-mails over this story, like this one. Louise from Iowa writes, "Good grief! Jennifer is a beautiful woman! Who in their right mind would say that she is fat? They are a bunch of idiot and need to see pictures of anorexics. It`s a sick disease that starts with not only parents, but what is seen on TV and read in magazines." Howard, who really is to blame here?</s>BRAGMAN: You know, we have to understand - we in the industry have to understand the messages we send to our clients. If my client is getting work, then they look just fine. And the images we see in magazines so often, we know they`re created images. They`re done after work, after the photo session in the studio with air brushing. That is not what people really look like. We have flaws. We have dimples. We have moles. We are not perfect. People really - it`s a balance. You don`t want to be a slob, but you have to be true and authentic to yourself. And very few people look really good really scrawny and anorexic. It`s just not a good look.</s>ANDERSON: Nicole, I want you to weigh in very quickly before we have to end.</s>BREWER: Yes, I think the point is whatever happened to love the skin you are in. Embrace your curves. Celebrate your curves.</s>ANDERSON: Right, Nicole.</s>BREWER: I mean, the whole point is we want to look good in our clothes. We want to look sexy and feel good. And, you know, there are healthy women out there who look absolutely fabulous. And women out there, you can look just like them. You can look fabulous. You can feel fabulous, and you don`t have to be a size zero. I work with petite celebrities and plus size celebrities, and all of them are embracing who they are. And just as Hollywood finally starts accepting all these beautiful women, then we want to break them down? What`s that about? Stop the negativity. I think that`s the point.</s>ANDERSON: I know. Yes, it`s despicable. All right. Nicole Brewer, Emme, Howard Bragman, thanks to all of you.</s>ARONSON: Thank you.</s>BREWER: Thank you.</s>BRAGMAN: Thanks, Brooke.</s>HAMMER: So here`s what I think about all of this with Jennifer Love Hewitt. She is beautiful, she is talented and should not change one thing about herself. All right, speaking of changes -</s>PITT: They call out my kids by name and shove cameras in their faces. And I really believe there should be laws against that.</s>HAMMER: Brad Pitt - man, what a transformation this guy has gone through. I`ve got to tell you, I really admire him. He is a great actor. He`s a great dad, always doing a lot of charity work. But you`ve got to see how he got there. I have the startling transformations of Brad Pitt, not to be missed, coming up next.</s>ANDERSON: A.J., I think Brad Pitt really is such a great doting dad, and, you know, Jenna Bush wanted to call her dad right in the middle of taping "Ellen." I thought this was really funny. I`m sure it`s not always easy for the president to come to the phone. You`ve got to stick around for this. Coming up.</s>PITT: They call out my kids by name and shove cameras in their faces. And I really believe there should be laws against that. I mean, my kids believe that any time you go outside the house, there`s a wall of photographers.</s>HAMMER: That is crazy. That was Brad Pitt telling CNN`s Larry King about the nonstop shocking paparazzi crush he and his family have to deal with. Welcome back to SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. I`m A.J. Hammer in New York. All right. So what exactly has happened to Brad Pitt? I mean, think about it. He was the shy, young guy from Missouri. And now he is a mega star, a father, devoted to charity. He is a great guy, but, you know, I got to ask, how did he do it? Well, right here, right now I`ve got the startling transformation of Brad Pitt.</s>CNN. PITT: A lot of the attraction before I came out was the fame, the lifestyle.</s>HAMMER: And Pitt found the fame he was looking for after leaving Springfield, Missouri, with big dreams.</s>PITT: I`m Randy. Nice to meet you, sir.</s>HAMMER: It was a role on the hot TV series "Dallas" where he played actress Shalane McCall`s a love interest, Randy. And a photo shoot that they did together on the set arranged by Shalane`s then-manager Phil Lobel(ph), that would send Brad off into super stardom orbit. Lobel tells SHOWBIZ TONIGHT what happened.</s>PHIL LOBEL, BRAD PITT`S FORMER MANAGER: I retooled the original plans for the photo shoot, which was going to be around Shalane. And we did a photo of Brad and Shalane sitting on the couch, getting ready to do their first scene together, and it was that very first photo that ended up in "People" magazine. The famous photo - he was Randy from "Dallas." Who knew?</s>HAMMER: Who knew is right. In fact, no one, including Brad himself, could imagine how big and famous he would one day become. Just listen to him describe his first day on that "Dallas" set.</s>PITT: I`ve got to admit, I was like this, ah, ah, ah. I used to watch these people. I`m still a little star struck to be honest. You know, I just watched six months ago. I was sitting home in Missouri watching these people on</s>TV. HAMMER: And now, the world watches him and Angelina Jolie, obsessively. But just how did Brad Pitt get to where he is today? How did he go from "Dallas" to the desired drifter in the 1991 film "Thelma and Louise" -</s>PITT: Ladies, Gentlemen, let`s do</s>HAMMER: To the award-winning actor and humanitarian he is today?</s>MIKE FLEEMAN, WEST COAST EDITOR, "PEOPLE": Very early in his career, Brad Pitt tried to prove to people that he wasn`t just a pretty boy.</s>HAMMER: SHOWBIZ TONIGHT can tell you that Pitt took on a variety of roles to prove he was not just a pretty boy.</s>PITT: I`ll be fine.</s>HAMMER: Including Paul, the rebellious journalist in Robert Redford`s 1992 film "A River Runs Through It." And then, there was in 1994 Golden Globe nominated turn in "Legends of the Fall."</s>PITT: You say that again, and we`re not brothers.</s>HAMMER: Where he played the son of an army colonel who moves his family into the wilds of Montana. One year later, in 1995, Brad Pitt would receive an Oscar nomination for his dramatic turn in the movie "Twelve Monkeys."</s>PITT: I wasn`t expecting that. No. This, no. No.</s>HAMMER: A role he would win a Golden Globe for, marking the beginning of his transformation to super star. But Pitt remained humble about his super stardom even in 1997, two years after his Golden Globe win.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE TV HOST: You went from being an actor trying to get a job to a superstar.</s>PITT: Oh, I don`t know. I don`t know when that clicked. I don`t know.</s>HAMMER: But something else was clicking for Pitt, and that was all those cameras clicking away. The media`s fascination with his personal life grew. His engagement to Gwyneth Paltrow, who met on the set of their movie "Seven," made them a tabloid target. In fact, in that same year, 1997, after "Playgirl" magazine published photos of him and Paltrow, Pitt sued accusing the photographer of trespassing. Pitt would later joke that it wasn`t just his face the photographer was after.</s>PITT: Not just</s>HAMMER: Pitt and Paltrow would become engaged, but that ended. And then the following year, 1998, he met "Friends" actress Jennifer Aniston. Two years later, Pitt and Aniston got married in Malibu, their ceremony shielded from the prying eyes of the paparazzi. They became Hollywood`s most famous and most watched couple, the focus of stories filled with both fact and fiction.</s>PITT: We`ve been in it for long enough to not take it so seriously, and it`s usually always inaccurate. And now we have more of a laugh from it when we do pay attention to it.</s>HAMMER: But, sadly, the marriage did end in January 2005. They announced their split, and the rumors of a relationship with Angelina Jolie, who we met on the set of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" reached a fever pitch.</s>PITT: Do you think the story is going to have a happy ending?</s>ANGELINA JOLIE, GIRLFRIEND OF BRAD PITT: Happy endings are stories that haven`t finished yet.</s>HAMMER: At first they denied rumors they were a couple. Angelina adopted her daughter Zahara, an AIDS orphan from Ethiopia. And soon after, it was Brad who filed the papers to jointly adopt Zahara and Jolie`s son Maddox. Another transformation of Brad Pitt as father and humanitarian.</s>JUDY KURIANSKY, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Angelina, as his love partner, paved the way for him to really step into that role of being the humanitarian. She showed him how to do this.</s>HAMMER: And together Pitt and Jolie shined a light on so many countries in need. - in Haiti, when they announced they were expecting baby Shiloh; in Namibia, where they went to have baby Shiloh.</s>PITT: I would just like to thank the people of Namibia. They have been so gracious and made our stay here very special.</s>HAMMER: In Vietnam, where they adopted baby Pax and once more when they set down roots in the New Orleans French quarter. And Brad took to his new home in the hurricane-devastated New Orleans in more ways than one. He shot his next movie there, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."</s>PITT: It`s a really good film.</s>HAMMER: And he has put his love of architecture to work for a good cause, building much need new homes.</s>KURIANSKY: He has his own project with the Clinton Global Initiative in the "Make It Right" project to build affordable green homes.</s>HAMMER: And Pitt has put his money where his mouth is, pledging $5 million of his own money to help rebuild New Orleans.</s>FLEEMAN: He was never poor. He never struggled, but there was always this sort of charitable side to him. And I think it was when he hooked up with Angelina Jolie that he was able to tap into that and really fulfill himself in his charitable work and see the world as more than just making films and being a movie star.</s>HAMMER: But being a movie star, coupled with the media`s fascination with him and his family, has gotten to Pitt. In an interview with CNN`s Larry King, Pitt says the paparazzi are out of control when it comes to his children.</s>PITT: They call out my kids by name and shove cameras in their faces. And I really believe there should be laws against that. I mean, my kids believe that any time you go outside the house, there`s just a wall of photographers and people that take your picture. That is their view of the world. I - I worry about the effect it will have on them, but we`ll do our best.</s>HAMMER: But SHOWBIZ TONIGHT can tell you, Pitt`s transformation includes something else, a keen sense to turn all that crazy media attention to something good whenever he can.</s>FLEEMAN: Brad has leveraged his personal life to do good. You realize that people are going to report and show pictures of him and get into his personal life, so why not use his personal life to try to do some good?</s>HAMMER: And Brad, the father and humanitarian, tells Larry King he is happiest when his important work meshes with his family life.</s>PITT: We`re up here as soon as the sun comes up, and to go home and have dinner with your kids, I can`t explain the fulfillment of that, but it is everything.</s>HAMMER: And along with Angelina Jolie, the Brad Pitt we know today might not even recognize the Brad Pitt he once was back on that day in 1988.</s>PITT: I`m still a little star struck, to be honest.</s>ANDERSON: All right. So, you know, parents usually say you don`t call enough. But what happens if your parents happen to be President Bush and First Lady Laura? What would they do if you surprised them with a phone call? Well, that`s what Jenna Bush did right during a taping of "Ellen." You`ve got to see this, next.</s>HAMMER: First, time for a look at what is new at the movies this week, brought to you by Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. In theaters, Friday, Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig in the fantasy adventure "The Golden Compass." The movie is based on Philip Pullman`s best-selling novel, the first story in "His Dark Materials Trilogy." Also, opening Friday, Keira Knightley in "Atonement," a drama set against the backdrop of World War II. And there`s already Oscar buzz for John Cusack in "Grace is Gone." It will be in theaters on Friday as well. Cusack stars as a young father whose wife has been killed in Iraq. And that is what`s new at the movies this week.