When Reese Witherspoon Revealed Her Assault Experience At 16 & The Deep Anger She Felt At Hollywood’s Silence

 

Reese Witherspoon once shared a mind-wrenching truth about her early Hollywood days. At just 16, she was assaulted by a film director. But that’s not all; she felt “anger… at the agents and producers” who made silence a condition of her work. Witherspoon alluded to this in a powerful speech at the Elle Women in Hollywood event, opening up about a chapter she’d long kept under wraps.

 

“I wish I could tell you that that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly, it wasn’t,” she admitted. Her words hit hard, especially as Hollywood reckoned with its dark underbelly during the Harvey Weinstein fallout. The Oscar-winning actress didn’t dive into specifics about her teenage experience, but she confessed to enduring “multiple other experiences of harassment and sexual assault” throughout her career. Despite years of silence, something about this moment, the stories from other women, the shared pain, pushed her to speak.

 

“I’ve felt less alone this week than I’ve ever felt in my entire career,” she said. For Witherspoon, the turning point was listening to other women bravely share their truths. “You can only heal by telling the truth,” she explained, adding that she’d talked to countless actresses, writers, and industry professionals who’d experienced similar horrors. Many of them, she said, were just as bold in going public. Her speech wasn’t without its emotional weight. Witherspoon admitted she hadn’t slept the night before. The anxiety of being honest and the guilt of staying quiet for so long were overwhelming. “The feelings I’ve been having about anxiety, about being honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier or taking action,” she said, weighed heavy.