Former child star Jodie Foster doesn't like the way the public have been treating Kristen Stewart.
After the 22-year-old "Twilight" actress recently got caught cheating on her boyfriend Robert Pattinson with her 41-year-old "Snow White and the Huntsman" director Rupert Sanders, she has been ripped apart by the public.
In an essay for The Daily Beast, Foster—Stewart's "Panic Room" co-star—defends the actress, saying how difficult it it's become to be in the public eye compared to when she was starting out.
"If I were a young actor today I would quit before I started," writes Foster. "If I had to grow up in this media culture, I don’t think I could survive it emotionally."
"Sarah Tobias would never have danced before her rapists in "The Accused." Clarice would never have shared the awful screaming of the lambs to Dr. Lecter. Another actress might surely have taken my place, opened her soul to create those characters, surrendered her vulnerabilities. But would she have survived the paparazzi peering into her windows, the online harassment, the public humiliations, without overdosing in a hotel room or sticking her face with needles until she became unrecognizable even to herself?"
Foster goes on to paint a portrait of what a typical day might be like for Stewart.
"A beautiful young woman strides down the sidewalk alone, head down, hands drawn into fists. She’s walking fast, darting around huge men with black cameras thrusting at her mouth and chest. “Kristen, how do you feel?” “Smile Kris!” “Hey, hey, did you get her?” “I got her. I got her!” The young woman doesn’t cry. F--- no. She doesn’t look up. She’s learned. She keeps her head down, her shades on, fists in her pockets. Don’t speak. Don’t look. Don’t cry."
Finally, Foster ends letting Stewart know that things will get better, and urges her remain strong.
"My mother had a saying that she doled out after every small injustice, every heartbreak, every moment of abject suffering. 'This too shall pass.' … The public horrors of today eventually blow away. And, yes, you are changed by the awful wake of reckoning they leave behind. You trust less. You calculate your steps. You survive. Hopefully in the process you don’t lose your ability to throw your arms in the air again and spin in wild abandon. That is the ultimate F.U. and—finally—the most beautiful survival tool of all. Don’t let them take that away from you."
To read Foster's entire open letter on The Daily Beast, click here.
