"I'm not going to lie - it's not annoying, it's hurtful," Hewitt told People Saturday at the Children's Institute Hosts Poker for a Cause in Commerce, Calif., to benefit Ghost Whisperer costar Camryn Manheim's charity. "It's really hurtful that people say that," says Hewitt, 30, who attended the event with her beau of 8 months, costar Jamie Kennedy. "Because he is like the most awesome person."

Adds Hewitt: "I really hate that people would make it seem like he's not really a good guy, and not treating me well. He treats me very well." A recent report suggested that Kennedy, 39, is still hung up on a former flame while dating Hewitt, a report Hewitt’s rep dismissed as a false claim by a disgruntled former employee.

"We are just trying to be really happy," Hewitt says. "It makes it hard to do that when everybody is putting negative energy out there." Kennedy, who stood beside Hewitt, added: "I am lucky to be with her. And I love her very much."

"I'm a girl, after all!" says the 30-year-old actress. "For the most part, yeah, I'm happy with my body, but there are days when I'm like, 'Ugh! Really? Why is it so hard to fit into my jeans?' That's when I say to myself, 'I look this way because I'm supposed to. If we all looked the same, we'd be boring.'"

To keep her food choices healthy and fresh, Jennifer hits the super-market every two days. "Instead of piling up food in my fridge that says 'Come eat me!' I keep enough for only a couple of days. And I rarely have treats around that might tempt me late at night, which is when I usually crave something really fattening. What am I going to do? Drive out at 11 at night just to satisfy a craving? No, that's crazy."

"Hollywood used to revolve around women with curves, like Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe," she says. "But now it's so different. Not that long ago, I went to this celebrity luncheon, and I was the only person in the room eating. The other girls looked at me like I hadn't gotten the memo, but I was hungry! All of these girls were afraid that if someone saw them eating, it would be a disaster. It makes no sense at all."

Hewitt has even used her handicraft skills to help boost sales. "She took my shirts and bedazzled them," Kennedy says. "She would take regular shirts and put sparkles on them, and we actually sold out of them – people go nuts for them."

How does Kennedy repay his girlfriend for all her loving support? "After the show she gets Pinkberry," Kennedy jokes. Kidding aside, he says Hewitt is "writing a country song, and I really want to make her a new demo for her music, because I think she should do singing again. She's so good."

Is it just me, or is her wardrobe a little more um, subdued this season?

No, it's a fact. We've had a change in designers this year. Everybody brings something different to her. Meeting with the producers (we felt) that the cleavage was starting to get too much attention. When we initially did it in the first season, it wasn't because we wanted people to talk about that, it was because we honestly believed the she was [just dressing like] a newlywed, so whatever. So many [women on] shows now are cops or are always in business suits, so we thought it would be nice to show on network television the Sarah Jessica Parker way of things with this glamorous girl who likes to play with her clothes and can have fun with fashion.

Makes sense.

Somewhere along the way, as cute as it was, people started to concentrate more on that than what Melinda was actually doing on the show. That for us became a very scary thing because the show is not about that. This season we consciously decided to take some of that away. We'll still give the audience a little something. We'll still do the nightgown things for people who need that ... for the 14-year-old boys out there in America. But we really wanted people this season to pay attention to what she's saying and what she's doing. I think we've accomplished that and that makes me happy. I work really hard and to only have people talk about cleavage is not exactly a compliment.