Reese Witherspoon Says Her Spirit ‘Had Been Diminished’ After Past Abusive Relationship

Reese Witherspoon is reflecting on leaving a past abusive relationship.

“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, 49, said during a Saturday, September 20, appearance on The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast. “You get into relationships that don’t work for you, and sometimes you don’t even see the dynamics that are happening.”

She added, “When I got out of that, it took me a while to reconstitute myself. 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.”

Witherspoon previously revealed in 2018 that she once left a partner who was allegedly psychologically and verbally abusive. While speaking on Saturday’s podcast, the actress added that, despite retraining her mindset, she still often felt “really insecure” after ending her relationship.

“It took me a long time to be this woman that I am now,” Witherspoon said on Saturday’s episode. “It’s very hard to be a public figure. I have a lot of compassion for people who live public lives and maintain privacy. It’s nearly impossible at this point, with everybody dehumanizing you, taking pictures of you like you’re an animal in the zoo instead of a person with their children. It was really hard, and being a mom and wanting to protect young people is hard too.”

Witherspoon, who did not identify her allegedly abusive ex, is a mom of three. She shares daughter Ava, 26, and son Deacon, 21, with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe, as well as son Tennessee, 13, with ex-husband Jim Toth.

“There was so much I didn’t know,” the Morning Show star further told podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro about becoming a young parent. “Maybe that naïveté was good because it’s like, ‘Oh, I’ll just do that and have a career.’ I did have a few people say to me, ‘This is going to be really hard on your career.’ There were roles I couldn’t take.”

She continued, “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, [but] 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 had welcomed Ava when she was in her early 20s, shortly before starring as Elle Woods in the first Legally Blonde movie.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.