Reese Witherspoon is reflecting on the emotional journey she's been through—and the strength it took to rebuild herself after walking away from an abusive relationship early in life.
During the September 20 episode of The New York Times' The Interview podcast, the Morning Show actress opened up about how leaving a toxic relationship in her younger years deeply affected her self-esteem, even if she was still managing to appear composed on the outside.
“I was very good at being a professional and showing up and doing the right thing, but I wasn’t emotionally mature when I was young,” Witherspoon recalled. “You get into relationships that don’t work for you, and sometimes you don’t even see the dynamics that are happening.”
Though she eventually removed herself from that damaging situation, the emotional impact lingered long after.
“It took me a while to reconstitute myself,” the 49-year-old said. “My spirit had been diminished because I thought all those awful things that person said about me were true. I had to rewire my brain.”
Now a mother of three—Ava, 26, and Deacon, 21, with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe, and Tennessee, 13, with ex-husband Jim Toth—Reese has spent years working on herself and healing, all while under the microscope of fame.
“It took me a long time to be this woman that I am now,” she told host Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “It’s very hard to be a public figure.”
“I have a lot of compassion for people who live public lives and maintain privacy,” she added. “It’s nearly impossible at this point with everybody dehumanizing you in a certain way, taking pictures of you like you’re an animal in the zoo instead of a person with their children or having a private moment.”
These latest remarks come years after Reese first spoke publicly about the abusive relationship, describing it in a 2018 interview with Oprah Winfrey as a turning point in her life. At the time, she detailed how the abuse she endured—both “psychological” and “verbal”—ultimately led to a powerful decision.
"I drew a line in the sand, and it got crossed, and my brain just switched,” she told O, The Oprah Magazine. “I couldn't go any further. I was really young, and it was profound."
Without disclosing the identity of the person or going into specifics, she explained how the moment changed her at her core. "It changed who I was on a cellular level, the fact that I stood up for myself. It's part of the reason I can stand up and say, 'Yes, I'm ambitious.' Because someone tried to take that from me."