Kate Jackson said fame came at a steep cost — and it’s one she still hasn’t embraced decades later.
The former TV star said constant scrutiny stripped away her privacy early on, a trade-off that later pushed her to retreat from Hollywood.
“We lost our privacy, totally,” Jackson told People at the 50th anniversary celebration of “Charlie’s Angels.” “We just absolutely totally lost every bit of privacy. And then, to make it worse, those horrible tabloids.”
The “Charlie’s Angels” alum didn’t mince words as she reflected on modern culture and her disconnect from social media.
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“I don’t understand social media. I mean, I don’t get it,” she said. “All I want is a little privacy. And I don’t understand why people are so fond of taking their picture and telling the world where they are at this very moment, doing this thing. I don’t get it.”
Jackson, now 77, got her start on “Dark Shadows” before cementing herself as a household name with her performance as Sabrina Duncan on “Charlie’s Angels.” She later solidified her TV legacy with roles in “Scarecrow and Mrs. King.”
Despite a career that made her a television mainstay, Jackson said she never anticipated the lasting impact of her “Charlie’s Angels” role.
“[I] never dreamed from day one, 50 years later, anyone would be interested at all or even had seen it,” Jackson told Page Six.
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“But the fact is it’s never gone off the air, ever. It’s always been on television.”
“Charlie’s Angels,” which aired from 1976 until 1981, originally starred Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and the late Farrah Fawcett. Cheryl Ladd was added to the group after Fawcett filmed only one season. Jackson eventually exited the series and was replaced by Shelley Hack.
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Jackson previously admitted she walked away from “Charlie’s Angels” because she didn’t want to “sacrifice” her life for a TV show.
“I finally had to say, ‘Wait a minute, there’s my life, and there’s the show, and one is killing the other, so something has to go,'” she recalled in an interview with the US edition of Closer magazine. “I sure as hell wasn’t about to sacrifice my life for a television show.”
“My life was all geared to work, even though those people around the country know me and like me, they aren’t in my living room at the end of the day when I’m lonely and hassled,” she added.”
“I’d had it with Hollywood’s long hours, the politics, the backstabbing and the gossip,” Jackson said. “It was not a great town for having your feet on the ground and living a normal life.”
