Reese Witherspoon has said that “bad things” happened to her while she was a child actor, including being assaulted and harassed.
The actress, 43, told Vanity Fair that there was no forum for her to speak out about her experiences at the time.
She told the magazine: “Bad things happened to me.
“I was assaulted, harassed. It wasn’t isolated.”
Witherspoon said that the incidents were not isolated(Ian West/PA)
She added: “There wasn’t a public reckoning 25 years ago when this stuff happened to me.
“There wasn’t a forum to speak about it either.
“Social media has created a new way for people to express themselves that I didn’t have.
“That’s the great strength in power and numbers.
“I think we have a lot of judgment and that’s unfortunate because we’re all tenderfooted in these new times.
“We’re trying to find out identity.”
Witherspoon has defended the timing of her decision to speak out (Ian West/PA)
The Morning Show star added that after a journalist asked her why she had not spoken about her experiences earlier, she thought it was “interesting” that someone who had experienced such things could be judged “for the way they decide to speak about them”.
“You tell your story in your own time when you’re ready,” she said.
She added that she “always had a thing about exploiting sexuality” and would rather be considered funny than attractive.
‘Funny doesn’t sag’, according to Witherspoon (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
“I always say, ‘funny doesn’t sag’,” she said.
“I always just wanted to be funny, you know?
“And you can’t be rendered obsolete if you just keep being funny.
“Guess what gets rendered obsolete?
“Your boobs go south, your face goes south, your ass goes south, but you can always be funny.”
