Reese Witherspoon compared the way tabloids covered her versus other women in the 2000s.- She told Time that outlets portrayed her as "good," while unfairly painting
Britney Spears as "bad." - Witherspoon said she'd be in a very different place if she had been treated like the pop star.
Reese Witherspoon has carved out a multifaceted career as an Academy Award-winning actress, an entrepreneur, and a producer championing women-centric stories.
But her career may have looked a lot different if she had received the same media scrutiny as Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan in the 2000s, the Hello Sunshine founder said in Time's "100 Most Influential Companies" interview Wednesday.
Witherspoon recalled tabloids unfairly constructing "bad" narratives around other women while casting a select few, like herself and her friend Jennifer Garner, as "good."
"What if the media had decided I was something else? I would be in a totally different position," she said.
Witherspoon added, "I want to say it's my decisions or the career choices I made, but it felt very arbitrary. And kind of s---ty."
After watching The New York Times documentary "
She divorced her first husband Ryan Phillippe in 2008, a year after Spears divorced Kevin Federline. Witherspoon also had her second child, Deacon Phillippe, in 2003, three years before Spears gave birth to her second son, Jayden Federline.
The paparazzi followed Witherspoon's every move, she said, recalling the ever-present cameras at church, school, and her kids' sports practices. At one point, Witherspoon said photographers tried to take pictures of her family through the kitchen window.
"My children will tell you stories about being in preschool and people climbing on the roofs of our cars," she said.
Though Witherspoon said there are videos of her lashing out at the paparazzi, her angry reactions didn't affect her rosy "girl next door" reputation the same way Spears' outbursts did.
The "Legally Blonde" actress' gleaming reputation seemed to help her bounce back from less-than-flattering moments as her career progressed.
In 2013, Witherspoon was arrested under the charge of disorderly conduct after her husband, Jim Toth, was pulled over and arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in Atlanta.
"Do you know my name?" she asked the police officer in a video that was released following the arrest, adding, "You're about to find out who I am." Witherspoon apologized for her behavior days later.
While tabloids and late-night hosts used Hilton's 2007 court sentence, Lohan's trips to rehab, and Spears' mental health as cheap punchlines, Witherspoon's tirade seemed to work in her favor (at least, in the long run).
In response to the arrest video, The Altantic's Eleanor Barkhorn remarked that Witherspoon seemed "out of touch and privileged" but said it "reminds people that she's funny, that she has an edge, that she isn't as bland as her recent movies have made her out to be."
The following year, The Washington Post's Emily Yahr published an essay titled, "How Reese Witherspoon's arrest saved her career."
She argued that Witherspoon's run-in with the law marked a new, evolved chapter in her career, as proven by her lauded performance in the 2014 film "Wild."
"This is Reese Witherspoon 2.0, and she's flying higher than ever," Yahr wrote.