Reese Witherspoon Opens Up About Her ‘Really Bad’ Postpartum Depression
She had another bout when she stopped breastfeeding, she told ‘Harper’s Bazaar.’
Reese Witherspoon has conquered Hollywood and the business world, but even 26 years after becoming a mother, she’s reflecting back on how tough it was to battle postpartum depression after giving birth.
The Legally Blonde legend and Hello Sunshine founder was just named one of Harper’s Bazaar’s 2025 Women of the Year, and during her interview, she opened up about how while it was hard to make it as an actor and even harder to start her own media empire, struggling with postpartum depression and anxiety was “really bad.”
"It was really bad," she said in the interview. "In the first six months, I was simultaneously happy and depressed. I just cried all the time, I was up all night, I was exhausted.”
The mom of Ava Philippe, 26, Deacon Philippe, 22 and Tennessee James Toth, 13, said that she didn’t just experience symptoms after having her kids, she also experienced them when she stopped nursing months later — a hormone change that doesn’t get enough attention.
“It was a hormone drop I didn’t expect, which I experienced right after birth and again when I stopped nursing six months later,” she continued. “Everyone has an opinion. It’s hard being a young mom and having people tell you how to be, how to react, how to give birth, how to nurse and how to feed your baby. It’s inundating."
She added that a good friend helped support her and get her the professional medical help she needed, but that she was in a privileged position.
"I had the connections and the means to get to a doctor, a mental-health specialist, but a lot of people don’t. They struggle on their own and hide it,” she said.
This isn’t the first time that Witherspoon has opened up about her mom mental health struggles. In 2020, on Jameela Jamil‘s I Weigh podcast, she described how her postpartum depression manifested differently with each of her children.
“I’ve had three kids. After each child I had a different experience,” she explained. “One kid I had kind of mild postpartum, and one kid I had severe postpartum where I had to take pretty heavy medication because I just wasn’t thinking straight at all. And then I had one kid where I had no postpartum at all.”
She added: “I have deep compassion for women who are going through that,” she added. “Postpartum is very real.”
Read Reese’s full Harper’s Bazaar interview here.
