Reese Witherspoon is reflecting on her career in the spotlight.
Witherspoon, 45, spoke to Time about how she was covered in tabloids early in her career and during her public marriage — and eventual divorce — from “Cruel Intentions” co-star Ryan Phillippe.
The “Legally Blonde” star recalled the lengths paparazzi would go to in order to capture her high-profile Hollywood family — and said those moments have lasted with her kids.
“My children will tell you stories about being in preschool and people climbing on the roofs of our cars,” the actress said.
She went on to explain that she and her family would be followed endlessly in their everyday lives, including on trips to church, the playground, ice cream shops and soccer practices.
Witherspoon even remembers one time when an RV was parked outside her home with cameras pointed at her kitchen window.
During her remarks to the outlet, Witherspoon also touched on how perplexed she is by her portrayal in the media as a “good” girl early in her career.
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In one sense, the reputation made it easier to reinvent herself later in her career. In recent years, Witherspoon has blossomed from just actress to mogul, heading her production company Hello Sunshine and clothing line Draper James.
But Witherspoon called her public image “arbitrary,” and even unfair, when compared to Britney Spears, who was painted as a “bad” girl in the press (a topic explored in the recent documentary “Framing Britney Spears”).
“What if the media had decided I was something else? I would be in a totally different position,” she said.
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Despite their similarities — Witherspoon and Spears were both stars from an early age, and Witherspoon and Phillippe divorced the same year as Spears and Kevin Federline — Witherspoon considers herself lucky, but randomly so in the unjust system of celebrity-obsessed media coverage.
“I want to say it’s my decisions or the career choices I made, but it felt very arbitrary. And kind of s—ty.”
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