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Reese Witherspoon Admits Divorce Was “Very Humiliating”

In April's Elle, Reese Witherspoon opens up about her 2005 divorce from Ryan Phillippe and her new beau Jake Gyllenhaal. On her divorce, Witherspoon, 32, says it was "very humiliating and very isolating. But, by the way, if it's not painful, maybe it wasn't the right decision to marry to begin with. Those are the appropriate emotions." "When people get in your face and say, 'This will pass,' you think, Are they crazy?" Witherspoon goes on. "I'm never gonna feel any better than I feel right this minute and nothing's ever gonna make sense again. And I still have moments where I'm like, Nothing's ever gonna make sense again."

See photos of Hollywood's ugliest divorces

The actress — who has two children, Ava, 8, and Deacon, 4, with Phillippe — says she tried to avoid the "blame game" with her ex. "It's a really easy thing to do, and I'm certainly guilty of it," she admits. "[You have to] look at yourself and go, 'What part of this do I need to own? Which part of this is my responsibility? And that's the painful work that you have to go through to hopefully get some real life knowledge out of it."

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She is now dating Gyllenhaal, whom she met on the set of their 2007 drama, Rendition. "He's fabulous. He really is a fantastic guy," says the star, who voices a toon in the animated flick Monsters vs. Aliens (out March 27). "Unfortunately, he's not in the movie, so we can't really talk about him."

See photos of Reese and Jake and other stars partying at post-Oscar bashes

She also opens up about her reported Type A personality. "I don't think I'm a control freak," she says. "I think I'm just fearful. I operate from a lot of fear, like, of things being lost or forgotten or neglected. Losing the spiritual rather than the physical."

See what a body language expert has to say about Reese and Jake "It's so funny to me that somehow I've been portrayed as a very, like, closed-off or uptight person," she adds. "I'm very open." She's especially open when it comes to food. "I'm made of cookies after the holidays," says Witherspoon, who denies she is diet obsessed. "Everything inside me is made of sugar and flour and a little red wine – a lot of red wine." Witherspoon also says she had gotten used to being a mother — but it hasn't always been easy. "When I first had Ava, I couldn't afford [help]. And it was so hard," she says. "I was out in Los Angeles, living [away from my family]. I really didn't have any friends. And I had a baby. No one else who was 22 had a baby. I couldn't go out."

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