“If you’re Reese Witherspoon, who do you sell out to save your own ass when the MiniVan Majority suddenly isn’t so impressed with it?” -- This was the final line of my post yesterday re: Reese Witherspoon’s arrest for being a bratty bitch to a police officer in Atlanta. Click here for a refresher. And here’s another refresher: DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? Remember that and the implications behind the question: I am better than you and I can and will destroy you.
Witherspoon was supposed to appear on Jimmy Fallon tonight to promote her new film Mud. She walked the carpet at the premiere in New York on Sunday night but did not work the press line. Not surprisingly, given all that’s happened, she’s not prepared to answer any questions about the incident on television. And Fallon would have to go there. I suppose the low profile play is probably the safest one. Certainly her legal advisors would have encouraged it. Especially since the entire arrest report has been released.
According to the officer who arrested Witherspoon and Jim Toth:
“I asked Mr. Toth how much he had to drink. Mr. Toth stated a drink. When asked where he had his drinks, Mr. Toth looked at the passenger, Mrs. Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon, and she began to answer. Mrs. Witherspoon stated that he had his drink at a restaurant. Mrs. Witherspoon stated that the drink was consumed two hours prior to the incident. I asked Mr. Toth if he would perform field sobriety. Mr. Toth gave verbal consent.”
One drink? Two hours ago?
Is that... is that a lie, Reese Witherspoon?!?
Click here to read the report in its entirety. That’s not the Reese we’ve known for 15 years, is it? Hanging out the car window, waving her finger, questioning the officer’s credentials, spewing nonsense about her rights as a citizen...Is that the Southern belle who once stood on stage at the MTV Movie Awards, chastising girls for sex tapes? The arrest report describes someone entirely different, non?
Which is why Team Reese is working so hard to fix the problem. And now we go back to who she’ll be selling out. Before the end of the day yesterday, PEOPLE posted this article about how “awful” Jim Toth feels to have “dragged” her into this mess. PEOPLE’s “source” goes on to imply that Toth may have a drinking problem and another “source” takes it even further, claiming that “no one would be surprised if Jim goes to rehab”.
WHOA.
What just happened?
Reese Witherspoon drops the “Do You Know Who I Am?” card, gets busted for it, and suddenly her husband is an alcoholic? She... was drinking too, wasn’t she? She’s already acknowledged that she “clearly had one drink too many” that night. How did we get here?!?
Well, it helps when your husband is in the business and understands exactly how this sh-t works. Toth is with CAA. Reese is with CAA. You always protect the talent. The talent, in this case, needs to appear sympathetic. In the celebrity ecosystem, it’s only natural then that he be the one to willingly eat the sacrifice. So that they can feed the MiniVan Majority a sympathy story:
Pooooooor Reese, no wonder, her husband is a drunk! Under so much stress, and with a l’il baby at home too, who can blame her for saying some silly things? She didn’t mean them! He put her in such a bad position. She was just trying to protect him! Because that’s what wives and mothers do. We are nurturers and protectors. We are mamma bears!
And it might actually work. Because people would rather believe in sickness, in addiction, in any other reason OTHER than the fact that sometimes, for no reason, just because, some people are just c-nts.
By the way, around the same time PEOPLE reported that Jim Toth was to blame, US Weekly posted that Reese and Jim hooked up with Cameron Diaz and Chelsea Handler at a party on Sunday night but didn’t drink and cuddled instead. Apparently the only beverage on the table was San Pellegrino. And Chelsea Handler was there?!?