Molly Ringwald slams 'Brat Pack' nickname for 'minimizing' the group's work
- The Breakfast Club actress has broken her silence on the notorious nickname
- The 'Brat Pack' was used to describe a group of actors who starred in 80s films
- READ MORE: Judd Apatow slammed for 'delusional' opinion about comedy films
Molly Ringwald has scolded the nickname 'Brat Pack' decades after it was first used to describe her and the group of young actors she was associated with in the 80s.
The term, created by journalist David Blum, was used to describe the group which was made up of Molly, 56, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, and Ally Sheedy.
Together, the 'Brat Pack' starred alongside each other in several coming-of-age films of the decade, including The Breakfast Club (1985), St. Elmo's Fire (1985) and Pretty in Pink (1986).
But in a new interview, Molly has hit out at the nickname saying it was a 'pejorative.'
Speaking at a Breakfast Club reunion panel at MegaCon Orlando, she said: 'It was a play on the Rat Pack, which was a group of, you know — Sinatra and Sammy Junior, those guys — and it was a term that was coined after this New York Magazine piece, and then we all sort of fell under this, this banner.
'And I think it kind of in a way sort of minimized the work that we were doing.'
According to People, she added: 'I mean that's the way that I felt.'
Molly was raised in Roseville, California, and started acting when she was only five years old.
Molly Ringwald has scolded the term 'Brat Pack' decades after the nickname was first used
The term was used to describe the group which was made up of Molly, 56, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, and Ally Sheedy
One year later, she performed on her musician father Robert Scott 'Bob' Ringwald's jazz album.
At age 10, she was cast as Annie in a West Coast production of the acclaimed musical, and she landed her first TV role a year later, in the show Diff'rent Strokes.
She then joined the show's spin-off The Facts of Life, and immediately the world became enthralled with the youngster.
She went on to star in the 1982 film Tempest, followed by Sixteen Candles in 1984, and The Breakfast Club in 1985, playing Claire Standish in the latter.
After that, she acted in Pretty in Pink, The Pick-up Artist (with Robert Downey Jr.), the coming-of-age drama For Keeps, James Scott's Strike It Rich, The Strand, ABC's Townies, the comedy film Since You've Been Gone, Not Another Teen Movie, ABC Family show The Secret Life of the American Teenager, crime-drama King Cobra, and the CW series Riverdale.
During the '90s, she relocated to France but continued to return to the States to star in movies.
Over the course of her decades-long career, she also headed to Broadway, appearing in Cabaret, Enchanted April, and Modern Orthodox, released her own jazz album in 2013, spent a few years running an advice column for The Guardian, and dropped multiple novels.
She married French writer Valéry Lameignère in 1999, but they divorced in 2002.
Molly said the nickname 'minimized the work that we were doing'
The 'Brat Pack' starred alongside each other in several coming-of-age films of the decade
She then wed Greek author Panio Gianopoulos in 2007, and together, they welcomed a daughter, named Mathilda, in 2003, followed by twins Adele and Roman in 2009.
'Brat Pack' alum Andrew McCarthy also felt similar to Molly about the group's nickname and revealed in an interview last year that he felt it had 'personal ramifications.'
Speaking to People, he said: 'Were we brats? We were certainly privileged.
'But there wasn't anything great about us. We were just in the right place at the right time and represented that seismic change in pop culture.
'You're easy prey when you're exposed in that way.'
Journalist David Blum, who came up with the phrase in a 1985 New York Magazine cover story about actor Emilio Estevez and his costars, stands by it.
Last year, he wrote that he doesn't 'understand why' some of the 'Brat Pack' members 'feel so victimized.'
Writing in Vulture, he said: 'I figured my cover story — with 'Hollywood's Brat Pack' splashed above a publicity still from St. Elmo's Fire that fortuitously caught Estevez, [Judd] Nelson and [Rob] Lowe in a bar, grinning and hoisting brewskis — would likely annoy these young stars for a few days, and perhaps cause some brief agita among Hollywood publicists who tend to want to control the stories that come out about their clients.
'Nothing prepared me for the firestorm of attention that resulted.'
