Reese Witherspoon Says She Had to ‘Rewire’ Her Brain After Abusive Relationship

Reese Witherspoon is opening up about having to “rewire” her brain after an abusive relationship.

The Morning Show actress, 49, told The Interview podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro in Saturday’s episode that she initially couldn’t see how unhealthy her relationship was at the time.

“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, and you get into relationships that don’t work for you and sometimes you don’t even see the dynamics that are happening,” Witherspoon explained, adding that it took her “a while to reconstitute [her]self” after getting out of the relationship.

“My spirit had been diminished because I thought all those awful things that person said about me were true,” she continued, noting that she had to “rewire [her] brain.”

“I was really insecure because I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve been in abusive relationships, and they can’t see it,” the Legally Blonde actress went on. “You know? And I couldn’t see it. It took me a long time to be this woman that I am now.”

Going through this transformation while living in the public eye was an added complication. “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 in a certain way, like taking pictures of you like you’re an animal in the zoo instead of a person with their children or having a private moment,” she said, calling the experience “really hard.”

Witherspoon previously opened up about being a victim of “psychological” and “verbal” abuse in a 2018 interview with Oprah Winfrey, noting that the abuse occurred when she was “really young” and in a relationship.

The experience “changed who I was on a cellular level, the fact that I stood up for myself,” Witherspoon said at the time, adding, “It’s part of the reason I can stand up and say, ‘Yes, I’m ambitious.’ Because someone tried to take that from me.”