"OMG. Isn't it so sad that Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon split up?" the Best Friend asked.

"What???" I practically shrieked, followed by a quick intake of breath as if I'd been the one who was breaking up.

She called me during Prison Break, I might add --- which would be a totally unforgiveable sin if it had been anybody else. People should know not to disturb me when my stories are on.

Okay, okay. So "stories" kinda implies I'm, like, a soap watcher, which I'm surprisingly not, given the amount of TV that I watch, but maybe that's precisely WHY I don't watch soaps...where would I even get the time?

For a minute, I was like, "Who is this?"

I actually thought it might be Soap Opera Girl with the latest goings-on in The Situation At Home, It seems like everybody opens with, "Heyyyy" as if I'm supposed to know who the hell it is. I don't, okay? I'm good with the names and the faces (though I pretend otherwise), but with the voices, I'm not so good. Oh, and I don't like to be touched, so if anybody ever snuck up behind me and covered my eyes and went, "Guess who?", I'd be screaming, "I. Don't. Like. To. Be. Touched!!!"

It's sort of like this guy at work who always says, "Good morning" and I always think, "Who are you?"

But, anyway...where was I? Oh. Right. Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon had announced their split and I was like, "Shut up! No way!" as if they were close, personal friends. (As The Best Friend and I often do with celebrities...though, this might just be indicative of how truly lame we are...though, I suspect we all suffer from a bit of lameness...some are just better at hiding it than others.)

The Best Friend was just surprised that I hadn't heard this first. I remember the time I asked her what she thought of Nicole Kidman's wedding dress and she gasped and said, "Nicole Kidman got married?" And I gasped and said, "Where've you been living? Under a rock?"

You know, Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe seemed like a good couple...though, when you really think about it, when we're all just peering into a relationship through tabloids and entertainment news shows like Entertainment Tonight, we don't really know shit about what really went on in that relationship.

You just look at a glamorous couple on the red carpet, both sparkling in their blondeness, and you can't help but sigh and think, "That's the life."

One thing I did say to the Best Friend was this: Reese Witherspoon isn't like Jennifer Aniston or Nicole Kidman, both of whom seemed fragile and you felt really sorry for what happened to them; I mean, you feel bad about what happened to Reese's marriage, but you also get this underlying sense that she's one of those people who's too strong and too put-together to suffer anybody's pity.

That woman can do anything she sets her mind to --- and ultimately, I think that's why she makes a better role model for young girls than other actresses.

---

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe Split: Witnessed
Tuesday, October 31, 2006

By Roger Friedman
FOX News

I hate to say it, but I actually witnessed the split between Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon. The Hollywood couple officially called it quits Monday.

But two weeks ago, they came to the opening night party for Ryan's performance in Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers." It was not a pretty scene. Reese was packing away cosmos and chatting happily with just about anyone, but it was clear she was peeved about something.

The party took place in the rooftop penthouse suites of the Soho Grand Hotel, and what I saw next was something I decided not to print at the time. The couple went out on the roof terrace and had a knock-down, drag-out fight. It looked like something from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

My line of vision was partially blocked by a big exhaust pipe, so at different times during the fight they were obscured. But then Ryan would appear, disgusted, on one side of it, and Reese on the other.


Suddenly, Reese stormed back inside, crossed past me and headed for the elevator. Ryan followed in hot pursuit. Thus, their security guards assigned for the night went running after them, thinking that they were leaving.

After a couple of minutes, though, clearer heads prevailed. The couple came back from the elevator with security in tow. Perhaps they'd forgotten that many members of Ryan's family, including his grandmother, were still in the room, oblivious to what was going on.

All of this was alluded to in our Oct. 17 column. I referred to their marriage as "tempestuous," trying to err on the side of good manners. It was obvious from their heated exchanges that the couple was in trouble. But no one really knows what goes inside a marriage; maybe fighting was part of their deal.

In retrospect, however, Ryan and Reese already knew it was over when they came to the "Flags of Our Fathers" party. They had already committed to it, and Phillippe's family wanted some kind of celebration.

The sad thing is they are both nice people. But they are also young; Ryan is 32, Reese just 30. They could never have calculated her stratospheric success.

But actresses tend to hit their stride early, with tougher times after 40. For men, it's the opposite. In five years, Ryan could be a perennial best actor nominee.

But the early 30s — with the exception of Leonardo DiCaprio, thanks to "Titanic" — is the hunker-down time for most young actors. They're too young for the good roles and too old for the teen ones.

I'm sure the tabs will be full of stories of infidelity. This column has already gotten calls about it. But I think, in the end, there are no villains for Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon. It was just too much too soon.