Reese Witherspoon’s huge fear after Ryan Phillippe divorce – and tragic cause

When hot young things Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe met at her 21st birthday in 1997, their attraction was instant.

Liking what she saw, an emboldened Reese wasted no time in making her move on the man she officially split from 13 years ago today.

"I don’t know what came over me – maybe the seven Midori sours – but I told him, ‘I think you’re my birthday present.’ He thought it was so flattering, and now that I think about it... how embarrassing!” she told Jane magazine at the time.

They quickly moved in together and Ryan popped the question after they co-starred in 1999's Cruel Intentions.

The couple married on June 5 that year in Charleston, South Carolina, when Reese, then 22, was already six months pregnant with their first-born, Ava, 21.

Son Deacon, 16, followed in 2003, a year after Ryan revealed they'd entered couples' therapy in a bid to look after the health of their marriage.

“The biggest mistake is not doing that, ignoring it and having the marriage fall apart because of laziness," he told the New York Daily News at the time.

For her part, Reese was keen to paint a realistic picture of their relationship, telling People magazine: "We’re normal people with normal problems.”

And in 2004 she bluntly told Vanity Fair: "Marriage is hard. It's not about expecting someone to make you happy every day or to complete your life."

Work often tore the couple apart, with one always staying behind to look after the kids while the other was away on set.

And it was during Ryan's stint on 2006 movie Stop Loss that rumours of an affair between himself and Australian actress Abbie Cornish first circulated.

Asked about the gossip, Ryan - who later dated Abbie, 38, for three years - said the situation was "never as simple as it's made out to be."

"It was unfair for her to be called the names that she was, because it wasn’t about that," he told W magazine in 2008.

"I don’t think an outside person can ever cause a divorce. I had difficulties in my relationship, and in my marriage, long before I ever met her.”

That November, he and Reese called time on their marriage, with their divorce being made official on October 5, 2007.

Reese, who was just 30 at the time, described the divorce as "very humiliating and very isolating" and revealed how she suffered intense anxiety attacks for months afterwards.

"Right around Christmas time I was sitting in a parking lot and I felt like I just couldn't get out of the car," she told Elle magazine.

"It was like, I can't get out of the car."

The actress finally managed to coax herself out when she realised she wasn't alone in suffering heartbreak.

But such was the depth of her distress that she harboured fears that she would never feel normal again.

"When people get in your face and say, 'This will pass,' you think, Are they crazy? I'm never gonna feel any better than I feel right this minute and nothing's ever gonna make sense again," she added.

"And I still have moments where I'm like, Nothings ever gonna make sense again."

Ryan, too, was devastated, revealing how he was unable to get out of bed for "a good four or five months."

“[It was] the darkest, saddest place I had ever been. It was a struggle... It was the worst time in my life," he told W magazine.

So what was the reason for their tragic split? Both would later admit that age played a huge part.

"I think more of the problem was age. When we got together we were so young," Ryan told Larry King in 2015. “I think it can create issues with two people in this industry because there's so much noise that goes along with it."

And Reese echoed his sentiments.

“I got married when I was 23 and I had two kids by the time I was 27,” she told ITV's Lorraine.

“I don’t know, sometimes it’s good to know yourself [before getting married]."

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