Jennifer Lawrence Explains Why Her Parents Let Her Drop Out of School at Age 14
"I was very conniving," the Oscar winner said of her headline-grabbing 60 Minutes interview.
Jennifer Lawrence opened up about her life prior to becoming a Hollywood megastar like never before during an interview with Bill Whitaker on 60 Minutes. One part of the intimate conversation has been grabbing headlines in particular since it aired on February 25: the revelation that Lawrence dropped out of school when she was just 14 years old.
Lawrence opened up more about the buzzy interview during the Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen After Show on Thursday, explaining why her parents let her leave school at such a young age (clip above). "Well, I slowly tricked them. At first, it was like, 'Oh, it's just gonna be until here,'" Lawrence told Andy Cohen. "It's a lot of details, but I can promise you that my parents thought they were doing the right thing, and I was very conniving. I'll take the bullet."
The Oscar winner told 60 Minutes that she had always felt lost in school and wanted to pursue acting. When Lawrence was 14, she convinced her parents to visit New York City, where she was discovered by a modeling scout and then got her hands on some scripts. "I struggled through school. I never felt very smart. And when I'm reading this script and I feel like I know exactly what it would look like if somebody felt that way," Lawrence shared on 60 Minutes. "That was a whole part of my brain that I didn't even know existed. Something that I could be confident in. And I didn't wanna let it go."
Lawrence ultimately decided to drop out of middle school, never returning to earn her high school diploma or GED. She said she is "self-educated" and has no regrets about dropping out of school. "No. I really don't. I wanted to forge my own path. I found what I wanted to do and I didn't want anything getting in the way of it," she said on 60 Minutes. "And even friends for many years were not as important to me as my career. I mean, from the age of 14."
That's why, as Lawrence later told Andy on Thursday's WWHL After Show, that knowing that her peers were in school at the time she kicked off her acting career didn't faze her. "I didn't really have friends until — this is gonna sound so sad and pathetic — until I met [best friend] Laura [Simpson] at 17," Lawrence said. "I left school and I met Laura at a party, and she asked me for my number. I just kind of looked at her, and I was like, 'You want to be my friend?' And so I had just kind of not had that part of my life for three years."
Watch Jennifer and her BFF pal around with Andy during a previous visit to the Clubhouse, below.
