Remember Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa? She’s the one who Blake Lively and Parker Posey were extremely rude to during an interview back in 2016. Well, on her YouTube channel, called Flaawsome Talk, Kjersti uploads her celebrity interviews and gives commentary on them. That’s how the whole Blake thing came to light, because she shared the video there. The latest star to make headlines thanks to Kjersti’s channel is Anne Hathaway. In 2012, Kjersti interviewed Anne while she was doing press for Les Miserables. Kjersti starts the interview off with a joke about Anne singing her answers back to her, which Kjersti had done successfully with Anne’s other Les Mis costars including Hugh Jackman and Amanda Seyfried. Anne laughs politely but then responds with a very blunt, (paraphrasing), “Yeah, I’m not doing that.”
Kjersti then cuts to two other clips from the interview, both of her asking Anne a question, only to be met with a very short, “No” as a response. She also shared that she’d met and interviewed Anne several times after that one interview and noted that she was lovely on every occasion since. Kjersti also posted the video to her TikTok, and somehow, Anne ended up seeing it. Rather than go on the defensive or just ignore its existence, Anne did the grown-up thing and sent Kjersti an email to apologize for how snippy she was during the first interview, something that Kjersti then shared via YouTube and TikTok.
“I have to say, I was pretty shocked. I had not expected her to reach out to me at all. I thought she was never going to even see that video, but she did and she did something pretty amazing,” Flaa said, revealing that Hathaway sent her a “long email” explaining what she was going through at the time and apologizing “for giving [Flaa] an awful interview.”
In the original clip of their brief interaction, which took place as Hathaway was promoting “Lès Miserables,” Flaa started off her interview by jokingly asking Hathaway to answer the first question through song.
“I was going to sing the question to you and you can sing back the answer,” Flaa said while laughing in the clip. Hathaway, however, didn’t like the idea. “Well I won’t be doing that, but you’re more than welcome to sing,” she responded.
Flaa went on with the interview by asking Hathaway questions like, “Do you remember your first crush?” and whether she believed “love was more passionate” during the period of time the film took place. Following both questions, Hathaway simply answered, “No.”
At the time, Flaa told her followers that “things didn’t go as planned” as she pushed them to watch the rest of the “cringe” clip on her YouTube channel.
In her Tuesday TikTok, Flaa further said, “[Hathaway’s apology] was so touching to me. Just talking about it makes me almost teary eyed. I was just so grateful that she did that.”
“It was a very personal note and we decided that I wouldn’t share exactly what was in the email, but I just wanted to share with you guys what she did because I thought that was just so amazing.”
Though she didn’t share the specific details of Hathaway’s email, the reporter said she responded to the Oscar winner’s email, expressing her gratitude for the apology and offering to sit down with her for another chat.
“I said, ‘If you ever want to sit down and talk about it, I’m here.’ and she invited me to interview her for her next movie that’s coming out in May,” Flaa announced to her followers.
“I have so much respect for people who own up to their mistakes and say they’re sorry. Sorry is such a powerful word,” Flaa added, likely referencing her previous ordeal with Lively who she claims never apologized for her “little bump” comment.
She finished addressing the incident by saying, “It was a long time ago now, I have no hard feelings about it.”
Honestly, while the whole “I won’t be doing that” thing came off as snippy, I really didn’t think the two “No” answers were that bad. Were they answers that an actor who is trying to sell their movie should give? No, but to me, she just looked exhausted. I’ll admit it: Even when everyone was giving her a hard time about her open Oscars campaign, I’ve always liked Anne and given her the benefit of the doubt. I know she took a break from the spotlight and came back refreshed, like she was Anne 2.0. It was really sweet of her to send an apology email. It sounds like it wasn’t just a generic response, either, but an actual email written from the heart after a decade of self-reflection.
But…yeah. Let’s talk about Kjersti real quick. Is she becoming someone that actors need to be worried about in terms of her calling out their bad behavior? She reminds me of someone who would have absolutely been the source of a blind item back in the day, only now, she’s just doing it out in the open and bringing video receipts. I’m all for as-holes being held accountable, but all it takes is one misleading clip to cause a pile-on, you know? Anyway, I do wonder if this is going to start a trend of more journalists going through their archives and calling out those who were rude to them. Are we entering a new gossip era?