Jodie Foster looked back on her childhood and spoke about why she believes she was saved from predatory behavior in Hollywood.
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The actress said she faced “microaggressions” over the years but was kept safe from the “bad” and “terrible experiences” that other child actors have faced.
Her reflections came the same week her obsessed admirer, John Hinckley Jr., spoke about attempting to assassinate Ronald Reagan to impress her.
Highlights
- Jodie Foster spoke about why she believes she was saved from predatory behavior in Hollywood.
- Her comments left the internet divided, with some saying her comments came off as "arrogant."
- Jodie's reflections came the same week her obsessed admirer, John Hinckley Jr., spoke about attempting to assassinate Ronald Reagan to impress her.
Jodie Foster spoke about why she believes she was saved from predatory behavior in Hollywood
Image credits: Marc Piasecki/WireImage
In an interview with NPR, Jodie Foster spoke about s*xual ab*se in Hollywood and reflected on how she was “saved” from it.
“I’ve really had to examine that, like, how did I get saved? There were microaggressions, of course,” the 63-year-old actress said.
“Anybody who’s in the workplace has had misogynist microaggressions. That’s just a part of being a woman, right? But what kept me from having those bad experiences, those terrible experiences? And what I came to believe … is that I had a certain amount of power by the time I was, like, 12,” she continued.
Image credits: Wmagazine
Jodie bagged her first Oscar nomination at the age of 12 for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. She starred opposite Robert De Niro in the 1976 film.
“By the time I had my first Oscar nomination, I was part of a different category of people that had power and I was too dangerous to touch. I could’ve ruined people’s careers or I could’ve called ‘Uncle,’ so I wasn’t on the block,” Jodie said in her recent interview.
The two-time Oscar winner explained that her personality may also have played a role in protecting her from being exploited.
“I am a head-first person and I approach the world in a head-first way,” she said. “It’s very difficult to emotionally manipulate me because I don’t operate with my emotions on the surface.”
The Oscar winner described her personality, explaining that it is hard for people to “emotionally manipulate” her
Image credits: Amazon MGM Studios
The actress spoke about how ab*sers exploit power imbalances to prey on their victims.
“Predators use whatever they can in order to manipulate and get people to do what they want them to do,” she said. “And that’s much easier when the person is younger, when the person is weaker, when a person has no power.”
“That’s precisely what predatory behavior is about: using power in order to diminish people, in order to dominate them,” she added.
Image credits: Sony Pictures
Jodie admitted in the past that she finds acting a “cruel job” and wouldn’t want to be one if she had a chance to redo her career trajectory.
“It’s actually just a cruel job that was chosen for me as a young person that I don’t remember starting,” she said at the Marrakech Film Festival in November.
“So right there, it makes my work a little bit different because I am not interested in acting just for the sake of acting,” she added. “If I was on a desert island, I think probably the last thing I would ever do is act. So I was just trying to survive.”
Acting is a “cruel job,” Jodie said and admitted she wouldn't choose to be one if she had the chance
Image credits: American Broadcasting Company
The Hollywood veteran first starred in commercials at the age of three and got her first TV credit for an episode of Mayberry R.F.D. at the age of five.
By six, she made her feature film debut. Since then, she has become one of Hollywood’s most enduring and respected figures.
Her work as a child actor was so compelling that she had a growing group of admirers, one of whom was John Hinckley Jr., the man behind the attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981.
John told TMZ this week that he executed the plot to win Jodie over. He also believes he played a role in the actress coming out as a lesbian.
Image credits: LateNightSeth
John, who is currently promoting his new memoir John Hinckley Jr.: Who I Really Am, told the outlet that he was obsessed with the actress since he first saw her in Taxi Driver in 1976.
When she began studying at Yale University, John reportedly got her dorm details and phone number from the college registrar’s office.
He admitted to calling her and slipping poems under her door, but he never asked her out because he felt she wasn’t into him.
Jodie's obsessed admirer, John Hinckley Jr., said he hatched a plan to assassinate Ronald Reagan to impress her
Image credits: Aurore Marechal/Getty Images
The obsessed admirer said he came up with his assassination plan, thinking he “could impress Jodie by k*lling the president.”
He drew his inspiration from the movie Taxi Driver itself, in which Travis Bickle (played by Robert De Niro), hatches a plan to assassinate a presidential candidate after his love interest turns him down.
In the story, Travis also meets Iris (played by Jodi), who is a child pr**titute being exploited by a man named Sport.
Ultimately, Travis doesn’t assassinate the president but fatally strikes Sport and one of Iris’s clients.
Image credits: ABCNews
Jodi’s infatuated admirer John said he was inspired by Taxi Driver’s story and decided to assassinate Ronald Reagan to impress the actress.
In March, 1981, John went to the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., with a .22 caliber revolver.
After Ronald addressed the crowd, John whipped out his weapon and fired six bullets, leaving the president and three others wounded.
Image credits: John Hinckley Jr.
John’s lawyers said during the trial that he had watched Taxi Driver over a dozen times and was obsessed with Jodie.
The court found him not guilty by reason of insanity, and he was sent to a mental institution for over 30 years.
While speaking to TMZ this week, John said he believes he traumatized Jodie to the point where it affected her image of men. He believes she became a lesbian as a result of this.
Some netizens slammed Jodie's recent comments and said she simply got “lucky”
Jodie’s recent comments about her “power” saving her from being exploited in Hollywood were not well-received by some.
“Love her but I am sorry, she was lucky. Many children with perceived power got abused, this is an arrogant take and I am surprised she positioned it like this,” one said.
Another wrote, “Gwyneth Paltrow should have been untouchable, too, but Weinstein still tried.”
Others defended her and said, “I’m sorry, why is this a bad thing for her to say? Do you think she’s saying it’s wonderful that lesser stars have less power to call out abusers? She is simply laying out her experience as someone who was more fortunate, and displaying why others may be facing the horrors of Hollywood. Am I missing something?”
“I can see that she would seem frightening and not someone to try to groom,” one commented online
