Oprah Winfrey Says Reese Witherspoon Showed Signs of PTSD After Harvey Weinstein Scandal Broke
The Harvey Weinstein scandal definitely had far-reaching effects when it comes to Hollywood's biggest A-listers.
Oprah Winfrey recently chatted with Salma Hayek as part of her Super Soul Sunday Conversation special, when she revealed that her Wrinkle in Time co-star, Reese Witherspoon, was also greatly affected by the Weinstein scandal when it first broke last October. Winfrey said Witherspoon was showing signs of suffering from PTSD, including crying at the mention of Weinstein's name and not being able to sleep.
"I was on set with Reese Witherspoon, who has since spoken out ... and some other actresses, who haven't spoken out, so I won't say who they were, and this was like two days after the Harvey scandal had broken in The New York Times," Winfrey said. "Everyone, including Reese -- I've said this to her -- was acting like, I was seeing some of the girls at my school behave, who were suffering from PTSD. Everybody was acting like they were afraid and they were having the conversation."
"And I remember Reese saying, 'Oh god, this is just so upsetting. And someone mentions his name, I start tearing up. And every time I hear someone else speak, it just causes me to be upset and I haven't slept in two days,'" Winfrey recalled. "So I said, 'Jeez, you guys are suffering from PTSD. Did something happen to you?' Nobody said anything at the time."
During Hayek and Winfrey's candid conversation, Hayek also said she was suffering from PTSD due to her experience with Weinstein during filming for 2002's critically acclaimed Frida. Hayek detailed her allegations against Weinstein in a December op-ed for The New York Times.
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"They contacted me to be a part of the first story, The New York Times... already I started crying when they asked, and I ended up not doing it," Hayek told Winfrey. "I started crying because [I had PTSD]."
Oprah at the Apollo will air on Feb. 27 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network and will be available via podcast at Oprah’s Super Soul Conversations.
Last October, Witherspoon revealed that she too has been a victim of sexual harassment and assault during an emotional speech at Elle's 24th Annual Women in Hollywood Celebration.
"I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly, and I find it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate a lot of the feelings that I’ve been having about anxiety, honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier," she said. "[I feel] true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment."
"I wish that I could tell you that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly it wasn’t," she continued. "I’ve had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault and I don’t speak about them very often."
Witherspoon also spoke to Winfrey recently as part of Super Soul Sunday, where she opened up about leaving an abusive relationship.
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