Reese Witherspoon. Rodin Eckenroth/FilmMagic
Reese Witherspoon is still embarrassed about the time she thought she was supposed to roast a friend at an awards show.
It turns out Witherspoon, 48, was only supposed to present an award to her, and the mix-up led to the end of their relationship.
“It literally haunts me,” she told People in an interview published on Thursday, January 30. “So this friend of mine, who I didn’t really know that well but she was a very serious, proper actress, she asked me to give her an award. But I had never been to this award ceremony, so I thought it was, like, a roast. So I got up and I roasted her.”
Witherspoon called the event “British,” “elegant” and “classy,” and she simply read the room wrong.
“I was like, ‘Remember the time we got laser hair removal?’” she recalled. “I’m still embarrassed about it.”
The Legally Blonde star didn’t name the actress in question but said the two no longer speak. Still, she was able to look back on the incident with a laugh.
“We’re not friends anymore. I’m not even kidding — we’re not friends anymore,” she said. “I think she doesn’t like me anymore. I thought it was so funny and it was just, I had the wrong audience. It was pretty bad. Yeah. Not even kidding, she doesn’t talk to me anymore. Oh well.”
Witherspoon’s mis-roast wasn’t the first time the actress has added humor to an awards ceremony. She also broke out an Australian accent when presenting the AFI Lifetime Achievement award to her Big Little Lies costar Nicole Kidman in 2024.
Though Witherspoon may still cringe at the incident with the unnamed actress, her revelation comes just one day after she appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where she admitted she goes out of her way to embarrass her three kids to ensure they grow up with a sense of humor.
Witherspoon is a mother of three, sharing daughter Ava, 25, and son Deacon, 21 with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe, and son Tennessee, 12, with ex-husband Jim Toth.
“I think you should embarrass them enough that they’re funny later in life,” she explained on the Wednesday, January 29, episode.
“They’re not children anymore. They’re adults,” she added, before joking, “Which is weird because I’m 30, you know? It’s weird, but sometimes it works that way.”
Fallon seemed to understand where Witherspoon was coming from, calling her “one of the coolest moms.”
“Your kids gotta be proud of you,” he said, “but also, you post things [online] that make you embarrassed. … I love that about you.”
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