14
TheBodies Bodies Bodiesstar was very,veryTeam Jacob.
In 2009, a 14-year-oldRachel Sennottwas readingTwilightwhen she started to feel a sensation shed never felt before.
Do you rememberwhen Bella was really cold and then she had to get in the sleeping bag with Jacob?
She’s like, I couldn’t help it.
I had to cling to his warm body.
I was getting horny at that, Sennott, now 26, tells Bustle.
That specific part of the book ignited something in me.
People would tease me and make fun of me.
Then I started being like, Guys, stop, kindly stop.
And [some] people would laugh, she says.
I realized if I played on the joke, everyone would laugh.
It felt like I was more in control.
Social media helped me feel more confident because I remember feeling not pretty or whatever.
A self-consciously sexy identity at that thank Jacob Black.
Take me back to 2009, when you were 14.
How were you feeling about life?
I was a musical theater nerd.
I was always into performing, but not in a cool way.
I feel like I was probably annoying to be around, very goody two shoes.
You were raised Catholic.
What was your relationship like to religion at the time?
I was really scared terrified, honestly of going to hell.
I went to church every single Sunday.
I was not very sexually experienced at 14.
I didn’t kiss for a really long time and then that was all I did.
Then one time duringStep Brothers, my high school boyfriend touched my boobs over my shirt.
I literally was scandalized.
How were you feeling in your body?
I didn’t feel confident in myself until like two, maybe three years ago.
I went through puberty later.
I remember getting boobs when I was doing a production ofLes Misand I was Madame Thenardier.
Then I wanted people to keep looking at my boobs.
I think that was my first foray into growing up.
I was like, “Boobs.
I feel good about those.”
Then in college I went on birth control, which made me insane and f*cked up.
I was breaking out, my face shape changed.
It made my face all puffy, just from the weird hormones.
So I didn’t feel very confident in college, and right after college either.
So now I I feel more confident in just myself.
I can tell what my style is and what kind of things make me feel good.
But it took a while.
So you hadnt gone through puberty yet at 14?
Yeah, I had a slow puberty.
My period came late.
I was really short.
Like I was the bottom of the group, the butt of the joke.
What did you do?
I literally had a breakdown to my mom and then I brought a brown paper bag.
She was like, “It’s horrible for the environment.”
I was like, “I don’t care!
I’m being bullied!”
What were you dressing like at the time?
I would beg my parents to take me to Hollister or Abercrombie.
How did you imagine your future when you were 14?
I always wanted to be an actress, so I was thinking of that.
But I didn’t have a very good idea of what being an actress-writer-performer meant.
In my head I was like, “You get into a limo…
I’m glad that this has changed because at the timeGossip Girl[actors were the norm].
I always wondered how I would ever fit into those beauty standards or just that world.
Because I can’t really pull that off.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
