Jennifer Lawrence on Pay-Gap Essay Backlash: ‘Thank You for Proving My Point’

Jennifer Lawrence received heaps of praise for speaking out about Hollywood’s gender pay gap in an essay for Lena Dunham’s Lenny newsletter

But not every reaction was positive. “Some news show called my essay a ‘bratty display’ and I was like, thank you for proving my point,” the actress told Entertainment Weekly, which just named Lawrence its annual Entertainer of the Year. “Would you have called a man a brat? I was very clear: My problems are not relatable. This is not about money. I don’t need money, I have plenty of money, I’m already overpaid. What I was trying to write about was how my own mentality was getting in my own way.”

Lawrence, whose final installment of the The Hunger Games franchise, Mockingjay — Part 2, just hit theaters, wrote in her essay after emails surfaced during the Sony hack revealed she was paid less than her male co-stars in American Hustle.

“I would be lying if I didn’t say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight,” Lawrence wrote last month. “I didn’t want to seem ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled.’ At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realized every man I was working with definitely didn’t worry about being ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled.’”

[EW]