“I thought all those awful things that person said about me were true,” she said before adding how it’s “very hard to be a public figure.”
Reese Witherspoon is sharing the lessons she has learned over the years.
While sitting down for The New York Times podcast The Interview, the Academy-award winning actress opened up about leaving an abusive relationship when she was “really 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,” Reese recalled during the September 20 episode.
“You get into relationships that don’t work for you, and sometimes you don’t even see the dynamics that are happening.”
She revealed she developed a sense of insecurity and lack of confidence following the relationship and had a warped perception of herself because of the abuse.
“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.”
“It took me a long time to be this woman that I am now,” she explained to host Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
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Reese has remained focused on healing herself all the while navigating being a mother and life in the public.
“It’s very hard to be a public figure,” she added. “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.”
Reese shares daughter Ava, 26, and son Deacon, 21, with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe as well as son Tennessee, 13, with ex-husband Jim Toth.
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She first opened up about the past abusive relationship in 2018 to Oprah Winfrey for the March issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.
“I drew a line in the sand, and it got crossed, and my brain just switched,” she told Oprah.
“I couldn’t go any further. I was really young, and it was profound.”
“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,” she said at the time.
