Brat Packer Demi Moore Says Stigma of ’80s Label Has Shifted Thanks to Charli xcx’s Viral Catchphrase

Charlie xcx may have declared the end of Brat Summer, but Demi Moore isn’t quite done talking about it.

On Tuesday, Sep. 10, the 61-year-old actress stopped by Live with Kelly and Mark where she talked about the other bratty cultural moment of summer 2024: Andrew McCarthy’s film Brats.

In the documentary, which premiered on Hulu in June, McCarthy explored the Brat Pack phenomenon of the ’80s and how he and others in the generation of young Hollywood stars of the decade felt about being saddled with the label.

Moore, of course, was among those ’80s up-and-comers along with McCarthy, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe and Judd Nelson, and she participated in the documentary.

“When Andrew McCarthy came to me and he shared his experience, one, I was really taken aback, because I didn’t have the same response to this moniker of being called the Brat Pack in terms of how I moved forward,” she explained to hosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. “So, I was so curious to see how different our own experiences can be based on how we hold something.”

“Really in talking with him, none of us liked being called a brat,” she continued. “We wanted to be taken seriously.”

As McCarthy told PEOPLE in June, the Brat Pack label, coined by journalist David Blum in a 1985 New York Magazine cover story, had “personal ramifications” for him and his cohort.

“We just felt unseen,” he said. “It felt like I lost control of the narrative of my career. Who wants to be stigmatized and branded and labeled?”

Moore, however, has indicated she didn’t take it as seriously as McCarthy. “For me, I didn’t love it, being thought of as a brat because I thought it kind of diminished us as professionals,” she said on a January episode of Good Morning America. “But I didn’t carry it.”

The actress, whose buzzy new film The Substance hits theaters on Sept. 20, told Ripa and Consuelos on Tuesday that it was nonetheless “heartwarming” to revisit the Brat Pack era with McCarthy in the doc.

“What a quintessential moment in all of our lives,” she said. “We were 22 years old!”

Fortuitously, McCarthy’s film debuted just days before the release of British pop star Charli xcx’s sixth studio album, Brat, which went on to dominate pop culture over the past few months. Ripa noted that “brat” had now become “the greatest thing you could be called.”

“Maybe that shows the progression,” Moore said. “Maybe we’ve evolved.”

“It’s the Brat Summer,” she added.

McCarthy’s documentary has also reportedly sparked interest in a revival of one of the quintessential Brat Pack movies, St. Elmo’s Fire. In June, Deadline reported that Sony is exploring the possibility of a “new version” of the 1985 film with original cast members McCarthy, Estevez, Lowe, Moore, Nelson, Sheedy and Mare Winningham. That same month, McCarthy suggested that he and Lowe are up for the revival, and Moore told Ripa and Consuelos that she is, too.

“I would love it,” she said. “When I did the panel with Andrew, he had Ally Sheedy there who I realize I hadn’t seen in 30 years. And my heart just melted. It’s those moments you remember how far you’ve come, where you come from, and just how grateful and lucky I feel I am in my life.”