Reese Witherspoon says she found herself sitting paralyzed and unable to move in her car last Christmas when it suddenly hit her that she and her hubby, actor Ryan Phillipe, were really and truly divorced.
The star tells Elle magazine in its October issue: “It was like ‘I can’t get out of the car.’”
She explains she dealt with her meltdown by putting her situation in perspective: “I thought, Okay, half of the parking lot has dealt with this. More than half of the parking lot has dealt with this. Okay, let’s make it a little bigger. Half of this city has dealt with this. Okay, let’s make it a little bigger—half of this country, until I finally got out of the car. It was like, It’s okay. It’s okay."
She compared the moment to a scene from her movie 'Walk the Line', for which she won an Oscar, saying: 'There's this moment in 'Walk The Line' where June Carter says, 'I was never aware of how much I was seen.'
'I was very aware of how much I was seen. It was this moment of self-discovery and loss of identity and who was stepping out of the car, you know? Who is that person?' Reese says.
Check out the full interview in Elle magazine which hits the stores today.


