Reese Witherspoon in ELLE: Humiliated by divorce and operating on fear

Reese Witherspoon is the blonde who has shattered stereotypes with roles as a wary prude in “Cruel Intentions, a high school over-achiever in “Election,” a sorority girl at Harvard Law in “Legally Blonde” and a poor child turned ruthless society woman in “Vanity Fair.” Her turn as June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line” earned her a Golden Globe, SAG and Academy Award for best actress. But that doesn’t mean Reese doesn’t have her flaws and weaknesses like everyone else. When it comes to her painful divorce from Ryan Phillippe, accusations of being a control freak or seeing her own face on the cover of tabloids, Witherspoon confesses to ELLE how painful and lonely life can be on the other side of the camera.

On her divorce: “Very humiliating and very isolating…But, by the way, if it’s not painful, maybe it wasn’t the right decision to marry to begin with. Those are the appropriate emotions. When people get in your face and say, ‘This will pass,’ you think, Are they crazy? I’m never gonna feel any better than I feel right this minute and nothing’s ever gonna make sense again. And I still have moments where I’m like, Nothings ever gonna make sense again.” 
 


On dealing with the split: “You see a lot of people play this blame game. Blame, blame, blame. You know? And it’s a really easy thing to do, and I’m certainly guilty of it. [You have to] look at yourself and go, ‘What part of this do I need to own? Which part of this is my responsibility? And that’s the painful work that you have to go through to hopefully get some real life knowledge out of it.”

Carter Smith for ELLE

On being a young mother: “When I first had Ava, I couldn’t afford [help]. And it was so hard. I was out in Los Angeles, living [away from my family]. I really didn’t have any friends. And I had a baby. No one else who was 22 had a baby. I couldn’t go out.” 
 


On her reported Type A personality: “I don’t think I’m a control freak. I think I’m just fearful. I operate from a lot of fear, like, of things being lost or forgotten or neglected. Losing the spiritual rather than the physical. It’s so funny to me that somehow I’ve been portrayed as a very, like, closed-off or uptight person. I’m very open.” 
 


On the paparazzi: “Fascination is gonna die off. I honestly know it. But it’s just like I keep waiting and waiting, and then it’s just more tabloid magazines, and it keeps going. I don’t take a shower everyday. I don’t put on makeup everyday. I wear a lot of sunglasses, in case you noticed.”

But it’s not all work and no play for Ms. Witherspoon!

On her boyfriend, Jake Gyllenhaal: “He’s fabulous. He really is a fantastic guy.

On not being diet obsessed: “I’m made of cookies after the holidays. Everything inside me is made of sugar and flour and a little red wine–a lot of red wine.”


For the full story, go to ELLE.com