Reese Witherspoon admitted she was trapped when her ex-husband Ryan Phillippe made a joke about how she made more money than him during the 2002 Oscars.
The couple, who separated in 2006, were presenting the Oscar for best makeup when Witherspoon, 44, asked if he could read the winner, to which Phillippe, 46, replied: “You do more than me . Come in.”
She laughed and seemed shocked by the comment before reading “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” as the winner.
“I forgot something happened,” Witherspoon said Friday on the “HFPA in Conversation” podcast. “He said that, and no, it wasn’t written in a script. He didn’t tell me he would say it before it went on the air. So at the moment I was a little confused. ”
Witherspoon, who shares two children, 21-year-old Ava and 17-year-old Deacon, with actor “Big Sky,” added, “There are so few women who make a lot of money that sometimes they feel ashamed of it and sometimes they ‘expect them to give more, do more and be more to others in the same position that you wouldn’t expect from a male movie star and that’s just the double standard that exists in our society.’
However, she said gender norms have changed a lot in the last 20 years since she made the statement and more women are making money and holding these conversations about money.
“Women need to talk about money and how they made money and were not ashamed of it,” she continued.
Witherspoon also said that when Ava was in second grade, she came home embarrassed because someone at school said her mother was one of Hollywood’s highest paid actresses.
“I told her, ‘You never feel ashamed of a woman making money.’ never bad for your mom to make money and never feel bad if you make money and don’t feel embarrassed or embarrassed if it’s more than your partner ”.
Witherspoon and Phillippe met at the 21st Morning Show’s 21st birthday party in 1997. They tied the knot in 1999 and separated in 2006. Witherspoon married talented agent Jim Toth on 2011 and welcomed her son Tennessee in 2012. Phillippe had a one-year-old daughter with former Alexis Knapp.