Jennifer Lawrence Says Lack Of Privacy Makes Her ‘Scared Every Day’

In an AP interview, the actress opened up about the emotional toll of being hounded by paparazzi.

Being chased by the paparazzi has long been an unfortunate, unchangeable fact of life for the very, very famous. But if anyone can bring about some protections for celebs who long for a little privacy, it’s Jennifer Lawrence, who is refreshingly direct and candid about how much it really, actually sucks to never have a moment’s peace.

In an interview with the AP, the “Hunger Games” star opened up once again about how damaging it is to be treated like a piece of public property, whether by invasive paparazzi photographers or by the people who hacked and disseminated her private pics in this summer’s mass photo leak.

Although the actress was never under any illusions about the lack of anonymity in celebrity life, she admitted that she hadn’t realized the emotional toll it would take.

“I knew the paparazzi were going to be a reality in my life,” Lawrence said. “But I didn’t know that I would feel anxiety every time I open my front door, or that being chased by 10 men you don’t know, or being surrounded, feels invasive and makes me feel scared and gets my adrenaline going every day.”

And though she acknowledged that celebrity complaints like this aren’t usually received with much sympathy (“Nobody wants to help us because it seems like, you know, ‘Shut up, millionaires!’”, she joked), Jennifer is lobbying hard to put protections in place so that illegally obtained photos can’t be spread without repercussion. As she pointed out, “If somebody jumps my fence and takes a picture through my window of me naked, that’s illegal, but the photos can still be everywhere the next day, and that makes no sense.”

Meanwhile, the actress had the support of her “Hunger Games” co-stars. Josh Hutcherson had a rejoinder to all the “You should’ve known better” scolds, saying, “They say, well, this is part of it, you should have known — but you can’t know. You don’t know how hard it is to lose your anonymity until it’s gone.” And Liam Hemsworth summed it up more bluntly: