Whatever Happened to Alicia Silverstone?

In 1995, Alicia Silverstone made her mark on teen pop culture as Cher Horowitz, a spoiled Beverly Hills teen you couldn’t help but love – but where exactly did she go after that? Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re looking at whatever happened to Alicia Silverstone. For this video, we’re taking a look at what came of Alicia Silverstone’s career and why she’s never had a role as popular or beloved as Cher since. Born October 4, 1976 in San Francisco, California, Silverstone has always been especially interested in theater and acting. Landing modeling jobs from the age of 6, the first on-screen role of her life was in a commercial, but she wouldn’t be credited until appearing as Kevin’s crush in an episode of “The Wonder Years” in 1992 when she was 15. She made her feature film debut in 1993’s “The Crush” as a jilted teen out for revenge, and while she won two MTV Movie Awards for this part, she didn’t really start to gain fame until starring in a trio of Aerosmith music videos. It was these videos that earned her the attention of Hollywood director Amy Heckerling, who’d already made well-known movies like “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “National Lampoon’s European Vacation.” Heckerling was struggling to find the perfect girl to play Cher Horowitz but found her in Silverstone, who was able to make this spoiled brat a genuinely likable character. Loosely based on Jane Austen’s “Emma”, “Clueless” quickly became one of the biggest movies of the 1990s, emblematic of the era’s pop culture, and is considered one of the best high school films ever made. Afterward, Silverstone looked set to be the next big thing in Hollywood, but she became attached to 1997’s “Batman & Robin”, which was said by some to be a cursed production. Taking on the mantle of Batgirl, Silverstone’s reputation took a dive when the movie turned out to be a hot mess. She even won the Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress. The legacy of this role would leave a bad taste for years to come, when, after her minor weight gain at the Oscars in 1996 was noticed, the paparazzi started chanting “Fatgirl” at her. It’s no surprise she wanted to keep a low profile after being subjected to that. Throughout the late ‘90s, Silverstone wanted more control over the movies she was in, so she started her own production company, First Kiss. Originally planning to release three feature films, they only made one in the end: “Excess Baggage”, which starred Silverstone as a girl who faked her own kidnapping. But “Excess Baggage” wasn’t a success either, only grossing $14 million on a budget of $20 million. Her last big role of the decade was “Blast from the Past”, which she starred opposite Brendan Fraser, who played a man who’s been living in a nuclear bunker for years and still acts like it’s the 1960s. While it was received better than “Excess Baggage” and “Batman & Robin”, “Blast From the Past” was painfully forgettable and Silverstone practically vanished from the public eye afterward. In fact, she hadn’t even won an award for acting since 1998 and was last nominated in 2004. Throughout the 2000s, her most notable role was in a Kenneth Branagh adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost”, though she’s also remembered as the supervillain-in-disguise in “Scooby-Doo 2: Monster’s Unleashed” in 2004 and for a small role in 2006’s “Stormbreaker”. But just because she hasn’t been in many movies doesn’t mean she hasn’t been doing anything; instead, Silverstone has spent the years since “Clueless” focusing on her personal life and her family. In 1998 she became a vegan and has been a huge proponent of a vegan diet ever since, appearing in an advertising campaign for PETA in the 2000s to air her support for animal rights. She also founded a line of organic vitamins when she realized there was a gap in the market, and had a son, Bear Blu, with then-husband Christopher Jarecki, frontman of S.T.U.N. Jarecki and Silverstone separated in 2018, but still have a good relationship thanks to their son. Silverstone is such a staunch believer in the benefits of vegetarianism and veganism that she’s released several books, like “The Kind Diet” and “The Kind Mama.” She’s received backlash for these views however, especially her belief that veganism is the solution to many health ailments and her position as an anti-vaxxer. Most notorious of all was a viral video she posted of her feeding her son food she had pre-chewed, which a lot of people had opinions on. But away from controversy, she also had a few successful runs on Broadway during the 2000s, playing Elaine Robinson in the stage adaptation of “The Graduate” in 2002. Though her most acclaimed theatrical performance was in “Time Stands Still”, an off-Broadway production in LA, which ran in the late 2000s. When she started taking bigger film roles again, she featured in “The Art of Getting By” in 2011 and even reunited with Amy Heckerling for “Vamps” in 2012. She also starred in 2017’s “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.” Silverstone has also been part of the movement of some of Hollywood’s big names into television and starred in “American Woman” in 2018, a show based on the life of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’” Kyle Richards – though it was canceled after only one season. She may not be a Hollywood A-lister anymore, thanks to both her outspoken political views and her own decision to focus on the things that really matter to her, but she hasn’t completely disappeared from the media. Silverstone herself has said that she thinks her career is in a great place, and she’s sure to be in more movies, TV shows and plays in the future.