Emily Ratajkowski Quit Acting Because She Felt Like A Piece Of Meat
Emily Ratajkowski quit acting because of the sexist way she was treated in Hollywood.
Emily Ratajkowski is one of the most famous models in the world, but that fame has come at a price. Ratajkowski opened up about her experiences in the entertainment industry in a piece for the LA Times, detailing her reasons for leaving the acting world behind. Everyone from Harvey Weinstein wannabes to her own agents led Ratajkowski to one conclusion: “Hollywood is f***ed up.”
It all started with a music video. Emily Ratajkowski rocketed into the spotlight in Robin Thicke’s divisive music video for the song “Blurred Lines.” She has since become a fashion icon, an Instagram queen, and a major film actress.
Her first role was alongside Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike in 2014’s Gone Girl.
Her acting career led her to high-profile projects. She starred with Amy Schumer in I Feel Pretty and with Zac Efron in We Are Your Friends. “But I didn’t feel like, ‘Oh, I’m an artist performing, and this is my outlet,’” said Emily Ratajkowski.
“I felt like a piece of meat who people were judging, saying, ‘Does she have anything else other than her [breasts]?’”
Ratajkowski said the judgment did not stop on set. She recalled a party she attended with her now ex-husband, producer Sebastian Bear-McClard. At the event, her husband’s agent approached her, drunk, to say her fame made her “like Pamela Anderson before the hep C.”
Emily Ratajkowski stood in the crowd, steaming with anger and disgust. “I thought about the way that [Bear-McClard] had glided through the room, a room full of men who only two years before had been kissing Harvey Weinstein’s ring and encouraging their young female clients to take meetings with him in hotel rooms,” Ratajkowski wrote. “I hated that my husband was at all connected to these men.”
Emily Ratajkowski divorced in 2022. Suspicions that Bear-McClard had cheated on Ratajkowski were recently reignited when sexual misconduct allegations were levied against the producer, some of which were said to have taken place while he was married to Ratajkowski.
The toxic experience Emily Ratajkowski endured in Hollywood made her get on the phone in 2020 to fire her agents and representatives to take matters into her own hands. “I didn’t trust them,” she said.
“I was like, ‘I can handle receiving phone calls. I’m gonna make these decisions. None of you have my best interest at heart. And you all hate women.’”
The efforts she had made with her team to find roles that would prove her merit as an actress were largely unsuccessful. After she had struck out on her own without her reps, Emily Ratajkowski continued to audition. She was up for a role in the Academy Award Best Picture nominee Triangle of Sadness, but the part went to the late Charlbi Dean.
Emily Ratajkowski is set to appear in the TV movie Bright Futures alongside Lisa Kudrow. After that, her acting career may be put to rest. “…[R]ight now I’m not really interested in men’s POVs,” Ratajkowski said.
“Because they were lies. And I don’t mean infidelity. This is a f***ed up world. Like, Hollywood is f***ed up.”
Emily Ratajkowski may one day find a way to tell the stories she wants to tell with the people she feels safe telling them with. Until then, she has a strong career as a supermodel to sustain her. Ratajkowski is also in an ongoing custody battle for her son following her divorce from Bear-McClard.
Ratajkowski has made headlines lately for her dating activity, going out with celebrities like Brad Pitt, Eric Andre, and Pete Davidson. But her son Sylvester, who she affectionately calls Sly, is Emily Ratajkowski’s true pride at this stage in her life. Of being a mother, she said, “It feels beautiful, like I’ve awoken.”
Her first book, My Body, became a best-seller in 2021, and she now hosts the podcast High Low With EmRata. Whatever is next for Emily Ratajkowski, it seems the model has grown to a place where she is comfortable and confident enough to make sure it is an expression of not just of how she looks, but who she is.
