Reese Witherspoon remembers the moment when she “burst into tears” for an “offensive” and sexist cartoon

Reese Witherspoon recalled a particularly annoying sexism incident that left her in “tears.”

In an August 27 episode of the podcast We Are Supported By by Kristen Bell and Monica Padman, the 45-year-old actress was outspoken about her reaction to a cartoon of hers since 2015.

In the picture, which appeared on TIME, he was next to Gwyneth Paltrow, Blake Lively, Jessica Alba and Lauren Conrad and the headline read “Hollywood’s New Domestic Divas.”

The image accompanied an article about Hollywood characters who had recently become entrepreneurs, as Reese was photoshopped with an apron and a vacuum cleaner.

At the time, he had recently set up Draper James, an e-commerce site that sells clothing, accessories and household items with a southern flare.

The article described the five women as “selling the ephemerals of their domestic happiness.”

‘I think it was 2015. I had started a clothing business. Gwyneth was really growing up in Goop. Blake Lively had a business, Jessica Alba had a business and they made a caricature of all of us, ”Reese recalled in the interview.

“We were in ball gowns, and they stuck our heads in, and Jessica had an iron, and I, the vacuum cleaner. It was all so offensive that I burst into tears.

Reese said the post said “I’m sorry,” but the incident has continued to be with her as an example of a larger cultural problem.

‘I’m not even talking about ten years ago. I’m talking about 2015, when we decided, okay, we’re going to be entrepreneurial, we’re going to swing, we’re going to invest our own money, our own time, our own reputation, and we’re going to try to do something that George Clooney has done, Robert De Niro has done it achieved, and it is achieved.

“This message for little girls is,‘ If you have been successful in one area, you will not be able to succeed in another. “‘

And with that tune, the Legally Blonde star told the podcast interview that the incident helped her create her production company Hello Sunshine (which aims to tell female stories) and allowed her to be an actress. , producer, director and owner.

In the TIME article he had said at the time, “As a woman, I don’t think we’re as busy as our male counterparts,” as he was alluding to Hollywood making women participate in certain roles at their age.

He told Bell and Padman that they had created Hello Sunshine: “I consciously did it about six or seven years later, ‘I’m going to self-finance this business because I want to own that business.’

It was sold to private equity firm Blackstone for nearly $ 1 billion earlier this month, and he said the sale made him feel that the “banking world” values ​​”women’s narratives.”

“Which made me happy with the [Hello Sunshine] The announcement is that the banking world and the world of private capital value so enormously something related to women and women.

She went on to call the story “telling” women’s stories. “I want to be useful to the next generation of women, to my own generation of women who have not been well cared for by our business.”

Reese no doubt made a full circle with the post as it hit the cover of TIME in May as they hailed Hello Sunshine as one of the 100 most influential companies, while talking to the “media empire” it was building.