Jennifer Lawrence Shares Shocking Story Of Her Early Treatment In Hollywood

During the Elle Women in Hollywood Awards ceremony on Monday night, X-Men movies star Jennifer Lawrence shared an eye-opening story about how women are treated in Hollywood.

While much of the talk on this subject currently focuses on sexual harassment from powerful predators like producer Harvey Weinstein, Lawrence's story was about the more mundane, systemic, and degrading treatment she received early on in her acting career.

"When I was much younger and starting out, I was told by the producers to lose 15 pounds in two weeks," Lawrence recalled (via Yahoo). "One girl before me had already been fired for not losing enough weight fast enough.

"And during this time, a female producer had me do a nude lineup with five women who were much thinner than me. And we all stood side-by-side with only pasties covering our privates. After that degrading and humiliating lineup, the female producer told me I should use the naked photos of myself as inspiration for my diet. The director of that film asked me if I would star in a porno as well as many other things that are too inappropriate to mention here."

Lawrence did try to stand up for herself, but she found it difficult to get the help she needed from other producers working on the project.

"I asked to speak to a producer about the unrealistic diet regime and he responded by telling me he didn't know why everyone thought I was so fat," Lawrence says. "He thought I was perfectly f***able."

These days, Lawrence is an Academy Award-winning star of multiple franchises, including X-Men and The Hunger Games, which has given her much more power when in those kinds of situations.

"By the time I got Hunger Games, I could say no," Lawrence said. "I worked out every day, but I was damned if I was going to represent the idea that skeletal was a positive body image. What's the difference between then and now? I became a 'movie star.' And when you're a movie star, you have the power to say no. But every human being, no matter how successful they are, should have the power to be treated with respect because they are human."