A resurfaced video of Anne Hathaway turning down photo opportunities with fans sent her supporters into a debate about whether or not she was being “rude.”
The viral clip posted to X from 2022 showed the “Devil Wears Prada” star briefly interacting with her fans while walking to her car following the Valentino fashion show in Italy.
She was seen telling a rowdy crowd to be “calm” in Italian while gesturing for them to quiet down.
“I cannot take photos with everyone,” Hathaway said. “But I will stand here and wave if you would like to take a photo. I cannot sign, there are too many of you.”
“Mi dispiace [I’m sorry] but I want you to have something so if you’d like I’ll just wave a little bit. Thank you for understanding.”
The actress then apologized to another fan for being unable to take a photo because she would have to take one with everyone else.
The resurfaced clip sparked a debate amongst fans about whether Hathaway, 41, was being reasonable.
“Seems polite. She could’ve just walked away and snubbed them,” one person wrote on X.
“Very polite. Celebrities are not obligated to engage with fans,” another added.
“At least she did it graciously,” a third chimed in, while another added, ” Very polite, she could easily have ignored them.”
While a majority of fans agreed there was nothing wrong with the “Princess Diaries” actress’ “respectful” reaction, others disagreed.
“With how long she took to he condescending, she could possibly have signed and took the photos. She was being unnecessary,” an X user wrote.
“Condescending mostly,” another agreed.
“Rude and fake polite at the same time,” a third wrote.
Hathaway isn’t a stranger to internet hate and has been candid about the pushback she’s received in the past, especially when she won several awards in 2013 for her role in “Les Misérables.”
At the time, the “Intern” star admitted she learned to avoid news sites known to bash her, to avoid being “off-guard” by an article she didn’t want to see about herself.
During her Elle’s Women in Hollywood cover in 2022, the actress further reflected on the former “Hathahate” era, explaining she learned how to look past it.
“I do my best to not be afraid of what others might say and just focus on enjoying my life.”
She later detailed her coping process at Elle’s Women in Hollywood event, adding, “She 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,” Hathaway continued.
“When what happened, happened, I realized I had no desire to have anything to do with this line of energy,” she continued.
“On any level. I would no longer create art from this place. I would no longer hold space for it, live in fear of it, nor speak its language for any reason.”
The “Intern” star added, “Hate seems to me to be the opposite of life,” in which “nothing can grow properly.”
