Oprah Winfrey: Reese Witherspoon had ‘PTSD’ in the wake of the Weinstein story
February 9, 2018The concept of “triggering” has been co-opted by so many political jackasses. So many Deplorables throw the word around to make fun of “liberals” being “triggered” by various things: Donald Trump, fascism, Nazism. In turn, political liberals/progressives throw it back in the Deplorables’ faces, since they seem to freak the f–k out over minor sh-t all the time. In any case, real people can be triggered by traumatic stories or actual physical trauma.
I’m not going to claim that I was triggered by the Harvey Weinstein revelations, because I’ve never been traumatized to a point where I had those kinds of physical or psychological scars. I will say that Annabella Sciorra’s story about Harvey Weinstein has haunted me, out of all his victims’ stories. But there were so many #MeToo stories like that over the past four months, stories which stuck to me and made me think about my past and my friends’ pasts and so much more. Is that triggering? Or is it just compassion, and feeling so sorry for someone that you feel physically ill? Anyway, I bring this up because Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon were around each other when the Harvey Weinstein stories started breaking. Oprah says that Reese’s reaction was something like PTSD.
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.
“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].”
I understand how and why Salma describes her own reaction as PTSD – because she was directly and repeatedly victimized, harassed and abused by Harvey Weinstein, and she is close friends with several of Weinstein’s other victims too. As for Oprah saying that Reese showed signs of PTSD… I don’t know. I don’t care for the way Oprah is seemingly suggesting that Reese had a story about Weinstein in particular. Reese has her own #MeToo stories, and they are her stories to tell in whatever way she chooses to tell them (or not tell them, it’s her choice). Reese has already spoken about being sexually assaulted by a director when she was just 16, and she’s also revealed that she was in an abusive relationship when she was younger. It’s more than possible that Reese was triggered by hearing the Harvey Weinstein stories, and that the Weinstein revelations made her think back to so much of her past (which is what happened to so many of us, that’s how #MeToo was born).
Photos courtesy of Getty.