Anne Hathaway Faces Backlash: Hollywoods Hatha-Hate Campaign

She's currently riding high on the success of the hotly-anticipated sequel, The Devil Wears Prada 2. 

Yet 's life couldn't have been more tumultuous in the 20 years that have passed since the original film came out. 

For in the early 2010s Anne suffered from a wave of online hate so vitriolic that it spawned the name 'Hatha-hate', resulting in her losing film roles and struggling with her mental health. 

The Hollywood star became the subject of vile and toxic trolling, with the actress dubbed 'fake', 'theatrical' and winning the title of The Most Annoying Celebrity of 2013 according to a poll by The San Francisco Chronicle.

Even her Oscar win for Les Miserables that year couldn't save her, with the opening line of her acceptance speech - 'it came true' - going viral after viewers branded her 'pretentious'. 

So what sparked the 'Hatha-hate' train? 

While no one can pinpoint the exact moment Anne went from respected actress to national hate figure, the tide seemed to turn around the time of her universally-panned Oscars hosting gig in 2011. 

The actress co-presented the event with James Franco, and the pair were called out for their lack of chemistry and extreme difference in energy levels. 

James was quick to throw Anne under the bus, saying on the Late Show with David Letterman: 'Anne Hathaway is so energetic, I think the Tasmanian Devil would look stoned standing next to Anne Hathaway.' 

For her part, Anne called the gig a 'no-win situation', noting 'it's a really hard gig to stick the landing on.' 

She added that James 'didn't give [her] anything' to work with in the back-and-forth performance. 

That same year, Anne felt the wrath of DC Comics books when she was cast as Catwoman in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, because they didn't think she was 'sexy' enough.

As criticism mounted, soon every role and every speech Anne made came under intense scrutiny, with online attacks also beginning to target her physical appearance. 

Her Oscar co-host James and Howard Stern dissected the drama on SiriusXM, with Howard musing: 'Everyone sort of hates Anne Hathaway...'

He went on to speculate that it was because she comes off as 'so affected and actressy.' 

James didn't defend his former co-host, instead saying: 'I'm not an expert on - I guess they're called Hathahaters - but I think that's what maybe triggers it.'

By 2013, the hate reached fever point when she scooped Best Actress at the Academy Awards, with her acceptance speech ridiculed online. 

Anne later said that amid the barrage of hate she was miserable on Oscars night, explaining: 'I had to stand up in front of people and feel something I don’t feel, which is uncomplicated happiness.

'It’s an obvious thing, you win an Oscar and you’re supposed to be happy. I didn’t feel that way. I felt wrong that I was standing there in a gown that cost more than some people are going to see in their lifetime, and winning an award for portraying pain that still felt very much a part of our collective experience as human beings. 

'I tried to pretend that I was happy and I got called out on it, big time. That’s the truth and that’s what happened. It sucks. But what you learn from it is that you only feel like you can die from embarrassment, you don’t actually die.'