Reese Witherspoon admitted she regrets raising her children in Los Angeles after her divorce.
Witherspoon, 49, opened up about dealing with intense paparazzi in her early years of fame – especially amid her divorce from ex-husband Ryan Phillippe. The “Legally Blonde” star leaned on her fellow A-list friends, including Jennifer Garner and Jennifer Aniston, to help navigate the interest in her life following the split.
“And we would talk a lot about navigating public interest in our kids and how we could protect them from pictures and paparazzi, because they would be everywhere. All over the schools and all over the cars,” the actress told The New York Times. “I remember at church once in L.A., a guy jumping on the hood of the car and on each side, three people pushing against the window banging on the door when my kids were little after I got a divorce and chasing us like it was a police chase, down the freeways. It was terrifying. It was really hard on my kids. Anxiety-producing. I really regret living in L.A. during that time.”
“I know it feels like they’re just taking pictures, but it would be like 25 people on the side of the soccer field photographing me and Ryan to see if we got along, or we didn’t get along,” Witherspoon added. “And there’s a little boy and a little girl there.”
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Witherspoon filed for divorce from Phillippe in 2006. The couple met shortly before filming “Cruel Intentions” together and married in 1999. At the time of their separation, their children were ages 7 and 3.
“My kids had really bad anxiety,” she admitted to the outlet. “And it was all external. You can only shield them from so much, but when they can go to the playgrounds and are on the schoolyard, it feels like the world is chaos and there are no rules. [The paparazzi] would yell things at the kids about their dad or me that were wildly inappropriate.”
According to Witherspoon, the paparazzi would take video of these moments.
“And then they would only show the one part where I was screaming back at them, going, ‘Get back in your cars, leave us alone.’ I’m not trying to garner sympathy. It was my life,” she noted. “I just didn’t know that was what would come with wanting to be an actor.”
Witherspoon has previously hinted that age played a factor in her divorce from Phillippe.
“I got married when I was 23, and I had two kids by the time I was 27. So, I think, I don’t know. Sometimes it’s good to know yourself,” she said during an interview on ITV’s “Lorraine” in 2017.
“I would never change anything,” she added. “I said to my daughter, 25 you start to know yourself a little bit better.”
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Over the years, Witherspoon found ways to devalue the paparazzi’s interest in her children. She pointed to social media as a way to control the public’s knowledge of her life.
“That’s why when social media emerged, Jennifer Garner and I got on the phone, and we were like, ‘Oh, my God, we can decide when people have pictures of our kids? Sign me up,’” she told The New York Times.
“It devalued that market. There was no longer a market to see pictures of my children because people were getting it for free.”
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Witherspoon began her career at the age of 14 after landing a role in “The Man in the Moon.” After starring in several movies in the 1990s, Witherspoon saw major success with the 1999 film “Election.” She reached major stardom with “Legally Blonde” in 2001.
Despite her success on-screen, Witherspoon struggled with confidence in her personal life. She opened up about becoming the woman she is today after leaving an abusive relationship when she was young.
“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 told The New York Times. “You get into relationships that don’t work for you, and sometimes you don’t even see the dynamics that are happening.”
“When I got out of that, it took me a while to reconstitute myself,” Witherspoon added. “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. But I was really insecure. It took me a long time to be this woman that I am now.”
The “Walk the Line” star said 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,” she explained. “And being a mom and wanting to protect young people is hard too.”
