Originally appeared on E! Online
Reese Witherspoon has lived and she’s learned.
Indeed, the Morning Show star detailed the aftermath of leaving an abusive relationship when she was “really young,” including the insecurity and lack of confidence that followed — though it didn’t necessarily show on the surface.
“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 recalled during a Sept. 20 episode of 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.”
And though she did eventually get out of the unhealthy relationship, Witherspoon was left with a distorted perception of herself.
“It took me a while to reconstitute myself,” the 49-year-old continued. “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.”
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Since then, Witherspoon — who shares daughter Ava, 26, and son Deacon, 21, with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe as well as son Tennessee, 13, with ex-husband Jim Toth — has had time to focus on herself and her healing while navigating life in the public eye.
“It took me a long time to be this woman that I am now,” she explained to host Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “It’s very hard to be a public figure.”
“I have a lot of compassion for people who live public lives and maintain privacy,” she continued. “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.”
The Legally Blonde star’s latest comments come seven years after she first got candid about how leaving an abusive relationship that involved both “psychological” and “verbal” abuse ultimately allowed her to fulfill her destiny.
“I drew a line in the sand, and it got crossed, and my brain just switched,” she told Oprah Winfrey in the March 2018 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. “I couldn’t go any further. I was really young, and it was profound.”
Without delving into the specific details, Witherspoon explained, “It changed who I was on a cellular level, 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.”
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