Reese Witherspoon is opening up about the challenges of walking away from an abusive relationship.
The 49-year-old actor spoke about the relationship, which she was in when she was “really young,” during a recent episode of The New York Times’ podcast, The Interview. While she didn’t say who she was dating at the time, she described the lack of confidence she had, even though she didn’t let that feeling show.
“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,” she said. “You get into relationships that don’t work for you, and sometimes you don’t even see the dynamics that are happening.”
The Morning Show star confessed that when she got out of the abusive relationship, it took her a “while to reconstitute” herself.
“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,” she continued. “But I was really insecure.”
“I’ve talked to a lot of people who have been in abusive relationships, and they can’t see it, you know? And I couldn’t see it,” Witherspoon added. “It took me a long time to be this woman that I am now.”
She acknowledged that it wasn’t easy for her to “reconstitute” herself, given her career in the spotlight as an actor.
“It’s very hard to be a public figure,” she explained. “I have a lot of compassion for people who live public lives and maintain privacy.”
Witherspoon also acknowledged how difficult it was to be a mother in the public eye, as she shares two children — Ava, 26, and Deacon, 21 — with her ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe. She also has a 13-year-old son, Tennessee, with ex-husband Jim Toth.
“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,” she said. “It was hard. It was really hard. And being a mom, being a mom and wanting to protect young people too.”
The Legally Blonde star previously spoke about experiencing “psychological” and “verbal” abuse in a past relationship during a 2018 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
“I drew a line in the sand, and it got crossed, and my brain just switched. I couldn’t go any further. I was really young, and it was profound,” she said.
“It changed who I was on a cellular level,” she added about leaving the relationship. “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.”