Reese Witherspoon on navigating friendships: ‘My grandma used to say people are radiators or drains’

“Edit your friendships,” the 47-year-old actor told NBC News. “Everybody out there over 40 knows. If you aren’t adding to my life, get the heck outta my life. My grandma used to say people are radiators or drains. Stick with the radiators,” she said.

Witherspoon went a step further and said that at this stage of her life, she doesn’t care what anybody thinks. “I’m gonna do my work anyway. I’m gonna date whoever I want, go hang out with a friend nobody likes. When you release that feeling of other people’s opinions crushing you or holding you down, you’re free. You’re totally free.”

The Morning Show actor also said that she has become adept at dealing with rejection during her career. “I think I started so young, and rejection was such an early piece of my life that I learned a long time ago that other people’s opinions of me are none of my business,” she told the anchor.

“Everyone’s going to have an opinion of you,” she added. “It shouldn’t make a difference whether or not you show up. It shouldn’t dictate your mood. And it’s so hard to teach children this in particular, but I’ve had teenagers, and I’d be like ‘Who cares what they think of you?’ and they’re like, ‘I’m 15. That’s all I think about is how people think about me.’”

 

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But she highlighted that people get older and eventually realise that it is not worth caring what other people think about you.

Witherspoon went onto reveal her “beige flag”, which refers to each individual’s oddest trait. When asked what she would consider her own “beige flag” to be, the actor said, “I will touch literally any bug or disgusting thing.”

“It freaks people out,” Witherspoon said. “If there’s bugs or weird things, I pick it up. I have a morbid fascination with bugs. It grosses people out. It’s weird and gross, I know. I can’t stop, it’s like a compulsion.”

She blamed her brother, John for her “beige flag”, adding that she was tomboy growing up.

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