Reese Witherspoon Comments on Daughter Ava Phillippe’s Rare Photo With Boyfriend

Reese Witherspoon is a mom of three, and like a lot of parents, she can’t help but gush over her kids on social media every once in a while. The Oscar winner did just that on Monday when Witherspoon’s oldest child, 21-year-old daughter Ava Phillippe, shared a rare photo with her boyfriend on Instagram, posting a snap of the two together during a recent trip to Austin, Texas.

“The bats were feeling shy…so here’s a pic of us instead,” Ava’s caption read. Her mom was quick to comment, writing, “These two” along with a heart-eyed emoji. According to PEOPLE, Ava has been dating fellow UC Berkeley student Owen Mahoney since at least 2019, when she posted a pair of since-deleted Instagram photos of herself with him. A number of fans in the comments of Ava’s latest Instagram photo wrote that they think Mahoney resembles Ava’s dad, Witherspoon’s ex-husband Ryan Phillippe, and since Ava is often considered to look exactly like her famous mom, several people agreed that they “thought this was a throwback pic of your parents!!” “Young Reese and Ryan all over again..,” someone else wrote.

Ava received similar comments when she first posted a photo of Mahoney and didn’t seem to love them, which, understandable. After Ava’s friend wrote that “[Mahoney] does not look like your dad,” Ava replied, “Big thx.” Along with Ava, Witherspoon shares 17-year-old son Deacon with Phillippe and 8-year-old son Tennessee with husband Jim Toth. In a recent conversation with Tracee Ellis Ross for Interview magazine, Witherspoon shared a recent memory with her kids, telling Ross that the last thing that gave her delight was “Dancing around my kitchen this morning to different Top 40 songs.” “I’ll do anything to make people laugh, it’s sad,” she said. “I’m sure my children find it horrifying, but my mother used to do the same thing.”

When Ross remarked Witherspoon’s children will likely “look back on it fondly and it will probably promote you having a long, fruitful, delicious relationship with your kids the way you do with your mom,” Witherspoon responded, “That makes me want to cry, the idea of having a long relationship with adult children.”

“I never expected the kind of relationship that I have with them, but it’s so rewarding to be able to have kids that you can process life with a little bit, and they help me understand the complexities of what it means to be a human now,” she added. “So I’m really, really grateful that these little humans are in my life. Adult humans. I have two adult children now, Tracee. It’s crazy.”