Celebrities Who Triumphed Despite Hollywood’s Attempts to Undermine Them

During her time as a producer and star of “The Office,” Mindy Kaling almost lost her chance to win an Emmy. When the show was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series, she was told her name wouldn’t be submitted for the awards alongside the other producers, because there were too many people attached to the show. 

“They made me, not any of the other producers, fill out a whole form and write an essay about all my contributions as a writer and a producer. I had to get letters from all the other male, white producers saying that I had contributed,” she told Elle in 2019, noting she was the only woman of color in the group.

After that, Kaling was determined her success wouldn’t go unnoticed — and she had plenty to celebrate. The talented star went on to produce “The Mindy Project,” “Never Have I Ever,” and “The Sex Lives of College Girls.” In 2013, she even won a Gracie Allen Award for Outstanding Producer for her work on “The Mindy Project.”

Jessica Simpson was intensely body-shamed by the press in 2009 when she wore a pair of “mom jeans” that sparked global negative headlines about how she’d “let herself go.” Her high-waisted pants even saw TMZ declare, “Jessica Simpson: This Is How She Rolls.” 

“This picture that circulated and went worldwide broke my heart. Not the picture necessarily, but the caption,” the “With You” singer said on “Today” in 2020. “I was taken down by the world.” Simpson also opened up about the ordeal in her well-written celebrity memoir, 2020’s “Open Book.”

But the fashion mogul celebrated huge success after the bullying. And jeans helped her get there. In 2015, her Jessica Simpson Collection clothing line brought in $1 billion in yearly sales. Six years later, she got another big win when she took complete ownership of the brand (she previously owned 37.5% alongside her mom). “It means the absolute world to me to be able to take over complete ownership of my brand,” she told Footwear News.

Today, Jennifer Lopez’s stunning figure is part of her signature — and she’s so proud of it she even sung about it on “Booty” with Iggy Azalea. But there was a time when JLo faced a ridiculous demand to lose weight. “I was a dancer and I was athletic and even my manager at the time, who I no longer work with, was telling me, ‘You need to lose weight. You need to be thinner,'” she told E! News in 2016. 

Lopez elaborated to InStyle in 2018, “They’d say, ‘You should lose a few pounds,’ or ‘You should do this or do that.'” The comments got so relentless she had to hit back. “It finally got to the point that I was like, ‘This is who I am. I’m shaped like this,'” she said.

The “Get Right” hitmaker went on to become one of the most successful multi-hyphenates in history, landing many roles where she proudly showed off her body. In 2019, she starred as a strong exotic dancer in “Hustlers” and earned a Golden Globe and SAG nomination.

Britney Spears’ disturbing Hollywood treatment is well-documented. In addition to her controversial conservatorship, she’s been on the cover of almost every tabloid — usually with a negative headline. The star was hounded by paparazzi who took pictures of her during her lowest moments (including when she took an umbrella to one of their cars) and lived through countless interviews that would be considered cruel today. 

In her 2003 “ABC Primetime” chat with Diane Sawyer, which resurfaced amid her conservatorship battle, the journalist repeatedly pressed an emotional Spears over her breakup with Justin Timberlake. “You’ve had a rough year, you’ve had a year that would test many people,” Sawyer told the “Lucky” singer, before discussing her virginity and accusing her of “causing [Timberlake] so much pain.”

Spears released several albums and performed on several tours during her conservatorship, but arguably celebrated her biggest success in 2021 when it ended. “I actually got my first glass of champagne at the most beautiful restaurant I’ve ever seen last night !!!! I’m celebrating my freedom and my B day for the next two months !!!!!!!!!!! I mean after 13 years … I think I’ve waited long ENOUGH !!!!” she wrote on Instagram a few days after the conservatorship was terminated.

Janet Jackson faced serious backlash when her 2004 Super Bowl halftime performance was vilified for a wardrobe mistake that exposed her breast. “The tearing of Janet Jackson’s costume was unrehearsed, unplanned, completely unintentional and was inconsistent with assurances we had about the content of the performance,” MTV said in a statement (via Digital Spy). But the damage was done. 

Various radio stations banned the “Feedback” singer’s music and the star was essentially blacklisted from Hollywood, which involved her not attending the Grammys that year. Some claimed the intense response was related to Jackson’s race. “How this nine-sixteenths of a second became more important than a 30-plus-year career, to me, speaks to the reality of being a black woman in the public eye,” Paula Varjack told The Guardian.

But Jackson’s epic career was stronger than the wardrobe malfunction she handled so gracefully. Despite the setback, she did several tours and released multiple albums, also announcing her Las Vegas residency in 2024 which she extended into 2025 due to high demand.

When Winona Ryder was a teenager, a casting director made brutal remarks about her looks. “I was in the middle of auditioning, and I was mid-sentence when the casting director said, ‘Listen, kid. You should not be an actress. You are not pretty enough. You should go back to wherever you came from and you should go to school. You don’t have it,'” she told Interview in 2023. 

And that wasn’t the only time Hollywood tried to tear down this star. “It also happened a couple other times. And then it happened a couple of times through my agent — like, that’s the message I got … ‘She’s just not pretty enough,'” Ryder shared.

Ryder won, though, when she went on to become one of the most in-demand actors. She appeared in huge projects including “Beetlejuice,” “Stranger Things,” and “Girl, Interrupted,” making millions from her talent.

Reese Witherspoon famously went on to help other actresses after being told she’d struggle to land roles as a woman over 40. “I had a financial advisor tell me, ‘You need to start saving,’ I was like 37, and he said, ‘You need to start saving right now, because you’re going to be making drastically less money in your 40s. Basically, you’re not going to have much of a career,'” she told Los Angeles Times in 2020. “I’ll never forget! It put me in a panic state,” she said.

So Witherspoon did something about it. She started Hello Sunshine, her own production company, with a focus on creating roles for women and leading the charge on our recovery from girlboss culture. “Today I have something like 23 projects in the works driven by great female characters of different ages and races,” she told Glamour in 2017. 

The company boasts huge successes, including “Gone Girl” (which made more than $369 million at the global box office) and “Where The Crawdads Sing” (which brought in over $144 million). The “Legally Blonde” star also enjoyed some of her most notable roles after her 40th birthday, appearing in “Big Little Lies” and “The Morning Show.”

Not only was Salma Hayek told her ethnicity would hold her back in Hollywood, she was also warned that whatever career she made for herself would end in her mid-30s. “At the time, the new generations, it was impossible for a Mexican to have a leading role in Hollywood,” she told PA News in 2021 (via Yahoo! News). 

She elaborated on the racism she faced during a 2021 appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” saying that people tried to stop her getting big roles. “I have been told over and over and over, ‘You’ll never make it in this town, you will only play a prostitute, drug dealer, wife or girlfriend, and housekeeper,'” she said.

Hayek proved them all wrong. Speaking about her impressive career, which has stretched into her 50s, she said, “I’m proud of it, I want to shout it to the world, because I was told so many times it couldn’t happen and I almost believed them but I fought it and I won.” The “Frida” star’s accolades include an Oscar nomination and an Emmy.

In 2007, Paris Hilton’s appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman” made headlines after the host repeatedly asked about her prison stint. But the discussion should never have happened. “The Simple Life” star opened up about the experience on “This Is Paris” 14 years later, explaining her team struck a deal pre-show that her legal issues wouldn’t be addressed. 

“He just kept pushing me and pushing me and I was just getting so uncomfortable and I was so upset … it was like he was purposefully trying to humiliate me. And during commercial breaks I’d look at him, like please stop doing this,” she said. But Letterman wasn’t the only one who crossed a boundary with the reality star. The heiress told Harper’s Bazaar in 2023 she felt vilified by the press in the 2000s. “The way that I was treated — myself, Britney [Spears], Lindsay [Lohan], all of us — it was a sport,” she said. “We were just young girls discovering life, going out to a party. And we were villainized for it.”

Hilton went on to have huge success despite the negativity, and learned to tell her own story by using social media in a way that was revolutionary at the time. “When social media first began, I recognized the power we all had to create our own stories and take control of our images and narratives in a way that hadn’t been possible,” Hilton, who boasts nearly 27 million followers on Instagram alone, told Ad Week in 2020.

Taylor Swift’s transformation included a brush with the dark side of Hollywood in 2019 when she lost the rights to the masters of her first six albums. After businessman Scooter Braun bought Big Machine Records, the record label she was previously signed to, Swift opened up about her heartache on Tumblr. 

“For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work,” she wrote. The “Fearless” hitmaker continued, “I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world. All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years.”

To own her music again, Swift re-recorded her earlier albums — one of her most lucrative moves to date. Bloomberg said in 2023 she’d made around $400 million in music sales since 2019, including the first four re-recordings. Then there was her decision to re-visit each album on her huge “Eras Tour.” According to The New York Times, the tour amassed $2 billion in ticket sales alone, making Swift “The Man.”

JoJo suffered a similar fate to Taylor Swift when she lost control of her music. The star saw huge early success with singles including “Too Little Too Late” and “Leave (Get Out),” but in 2009, a record label shakeup left her unable to release music commercially. 

The singer explained on her blog (via Star Pulse), “Unfortunately I have become a victim of industry politics that honestly have nothing to do with me personally or professionally.” She added, “My record company has been going through a major transition and unfortunately all of the artists on the label have been forced to sit on the sidelines and wait.” JoJo confirmed she had to sue the record company in order to continue her career. “It made me feel out of control, like a little girl, disempowered,” she told People in 2020 of the ordeal.

JoJo was eventually let out of her contract and signed another deal in 2014. In 2018, she re-recorded her albums and turned her heartache into success via her memoir, “Over The Influence,” in 2024. The “RV” actor’s book told her turbulent story and became a New York Times bestseller.

Michelle Yeoh has had a hugely successful career that’s spanned decades. But just before she landed her role in 2022’s “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” she felt pressure to retire — despite acting in everything from “Crazy Rich Asians” to “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.” 

“As you get older, people start saying, ‘Oh yeah, you should retire. You should do this. You should — ‘ No, guys. Do not tell me what to do. I should be in control of what I am capable of, right?” she said on the LA Times’ “The Envelope” podcast. “As you get older, the roles get smaller … you start getting relegated to the side more and more,” she added.

But Yeoh proved age was nothing but a number. After “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” she voiced a character in “Minions: The Rise of Gru” and landed a starring role in “Wicked” alongside Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo (who got matching tattoos during filming).

During the height of Lindsay Lohan’s fame, her private life became inescapable tabloid fodder. “I feel like some of [my work] got overshadowed by paparazzi and all that kind of stuff when I was younger … I wish that part didn’t happen,” she told Bustle in 2024. “I feel like that kind of took on a life of its own. So that’s why I wanted to disappear. I was like, ‘Unless there’s no story here, they’re not going to focus on just my work,'” she added. 

The media takedown of Lohan included headlines like Star’s “Lindsay wasted again” and Daily News declaring “Jailo for Lilo” . So the “Mean Girls” star moved to Dubai in 2014. But by 2021, she was ready to return to the States and reclaim her career with a Hollywood-worthy comeback. Lohan signed a deal with Netflix and knew exactly what she wanted to do. “Self-discovery for women in movies … is a great thing in a happy, fun, lighthearted way. I really miss that and [Netflix] were onboard with me and that’s where the focus is,” she told Forbes in 2022. 

Her first big Netflix movie, “Falling for Christmas,” became the most watched movie of the week on the streaming service when it was released. “To all of the fans and longtime believers in me, I appreciate you. My heart is filled with so much love and gratitude,” Lohan wrote on Instagram.

In 2022, Rebel Wilson bravely spoke out about a disturbing incident with a male co-star that resulted in him attempting to bring down her career. “He called me into a room and pulled down his pants,” she told People. “It was awful and disgusting. And all the behavior afterwards — this was all before #MeToo — where they kind of tried to destroy me and my career,” Wilson added.

The experience made Wilson more determined than ever to portray strong women on screen, and opening up about her experience allowed others to see they’re not alone. “I want to have strong girl-power and female empowerment themes in the movies that I make. I want to entertain people and I want people to walk away with something positive,” the “Bridesmaids” star shared.

Ashley Judd recalled her harrowing experience with convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein in a 2018 ABC News interview, sharing how he blacklisted her from Hollywood after she refused his advances. “I lost career opportunity. I lost money. I lost status and prestige and power in my career as a direct result of having been sexually harassed and rebuffing the sexual harassment,” she shared. 

Director Peter Jackson backed up her claims, saying he was told not to cast Judd in 1998. “I recall Miramax [a Weinstein-led stdio] telling us [Judd and Mira Sorvino] were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs,” he told Stuff in 2017. “I now suspect we were fed false information.”

Despite Weinstein’s attempts to derail her career, the actor remained undeterred. She forged an impressive career, appearing in “Berlin Station,” “Twin Peaks,” and “Olympus Has Fallen.” She also bravely celebrated success when she starred as herself in the 2022 movie “She Said,” which told the story of the journalists who exposed Weinstein.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN’s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).