Reese Witherspoon Opens Up About Being a Young Parent During Marriage to Ryan Phillippe

Reese Witherspoon is opening up about what life was like as a young mom in Hollywood.

“There are parts of it that are private and personal and I don’t really want to talk about, but I will talk about having kids at a young age,” Witherspoon, 49, said during the Saturday, September 20, episode of “The Interview” podcast from The New York Times.

“There was so much I didn’t know,” she continued of her experience being a young parent. “And maybe that naïveté was good, because it’s like, ‘Oh, I’ll just do that and have a career.’ And I did have a few people say to me, ‘This is going to be really hard on your career.’”

She continued, “There were roles I couldn’t take. I had to have this immediate balance of family and career, being a mom and being a working actress. That’s why it was also scary when Legally Blonde became such a big hit. I wasn’t going to beg for parts; parts were coming to me. And that almost made it scarier, because I wasn’t picking and choosing what I would reach and strive for. It was more like, what will I not do?”

Witherspoon was just 23 years old when she gave birth to her first child, Ava, in September 1999, whom she shares with her now ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe. The pair — who said “I do” in June 1999 when the actress was six months pregnant — went on to welcome son Deacon in October 2003 before they eventually called it quits in June 2008. (The actress also shares son Tennessee Toth with her ex, Jim Toth.)

“You know what the most ironic part was? I was always being told by people in the industry: ‘Don’t play a mom. It’ll make you seem old.’ And I was like, ‘But, I am a mom,’” Witherspoon continued. “There was so much about our business that desexualized you, so you couldn’t be a movie star if you played a mom. And thank goodness, that’s sort of going by the wayside.”

She added, “But that was a big part of when I was in my 20s and 30s: Don’t play a mom. No men will desire you, or nobody will want to go see that movie because nobody wants to see a movie about a mom.”

Witherspoon credits her close friend, fellow actress Jennifer Aniston, for helping her navigate those early years as a working mom in the entertainment industry.

“As I got a little bit older, Jennifer Aniston was really helpful for me, navigating personal life and tabloid curiosity and also shutting out all the noise,” she explained. “We played sisters on Friends. I remember I brought my baby, Ava. Ava was only 3 months old when I was on Friends in 1999. And I remember Courtney [Cox] and Jen coming to my dressing room and knocking on the door and going, ‘We heard you have a baby!’ I was like: ‘I do. I have a baby!’ They were like: ‘Can we see it? Oh, my god, this is so cool.’”

She continued, “And I just remember them being so kind about it. That kindness opened a door for me to ask Jennifer a lot of questions when I went through breakups or a really public divorce, and she was just always very generous with advice and care.”

Witherspoon also recalled watching fellow young mom Britney Spears try to navigate public life as a parent, especially the intense tabloid and paparazzi coverage that surrounded the singer in the early aughts.

“I watched them chase Britney Spears. She had two little children and I had two little children, and I felt like it was this really unfair portrayal of her as a ‘bad girl,’ and I was a ‘good girl,’” she said. “She was a young mother trying to figure it out, away from home, being chased like an animal, and what that kicks up inside your body and what it does for you is very traumatic.”

She added, “I just have incredible compassion for people that went through that time period and were portrayed in a certain way by the media if they went to a nightclub versus they went to the playground. It was a very punishing time for women who were in the spotlight.”