In 2008, the 28-year-old's boyfriend of four years, Raffaello Follieri, was arrested and later sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.
And while the One Day actress, who is currently dating Adam Shulman, admits it is difficult for someone in the public eye to go through such an experience, she realises she isn't the only person that bad things happen to.
In an interview in the September edition of UK Marie Claire magazine, Hathaway said: 'People deal with horrible things all the time.
'Downstairs in this pub, someone is battling cancer. Someone has lost their job.
'Life is really f***ed up and it's really painful sometimes.
'I think it's unusual for someone in a position of prominence to go through something like that, but it's not really unusual in life.'