It'll take time to come to terms with the fact that Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe have split, as it always does when an Oscar-winning actress splits up with her husband most famous for being in the Hey Ya video for a millisecond.
We don't know about you, but we've just about gone through all five of the Kübler-Ross model stages of grief about the Reese Witherspoon/ Ryan Phillippe split; Denial ("Reese and Ryan split up? Yeah, right."), Anger ("How dare you God! Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe's happy marriage was all that we had. ALL THAT WE HAD!"), Bargaining ("Hey Ryan, I'll give you 10p if you get back with the peppy cowboy girl. 12p?"), Depression ("We'll jump if we don't at least see some conciliatory make-up sex between Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe") and finally Acceptance. Acceptance that Ryan Phillippe was probably having it off with another girl behind Reese Witherspoon's back, that is.
When Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe announced their split earlier this week, most people thought that they were simply following the Swank-Lowe break-up model, where the wife outstrips the husband in terms of fame, popularity, wealth and success and the husband slowly becomes embittered and turns to some form of addiction to numb the pain of having a wife who – as well as being way more famous than you – could probably also beat you in a fight.
Turns out those people were wrong; after all, Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe had said that their marriage was fine, and it would take more than Ryan Phillippe's crushing lack of fame from him to split up with Reese Witherspoon. Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe had been through so much together – Ryan was there for Reese when the paparazzo who punched that kid was later found dead in his apartment, Ryan was there for Reese when she tragically wore a dress that someone else had worn to an awards ceremony, Ryan was there for Reese when she made a rubbish Oscar speech and Ryan was there when Reese sued a magazine that said she was pregnant. It wasn't a one-way street, either; Reese Witherspoon was there for Ryan Phillippe that time that a vending machine ate his money once.
Now, though, rumours suggesting the real reason behind the Reese Witherspoon/ Ryan Phillippe split are emerging – it turns out that Ryan Phillippe may have been doing the nasty with young actress Abbie Cornish. MSNBC reports:
“Ryan did not go out of his way to hide the fact that he was having a fling with his co-star Abbie Cornish,” said Us Weekly’s Katrina Szish. “Besides the fact they were spotted making out in a sushi restaurant together, she was spotted many times leaving his loft apartment.” According to Us Weekly, Ryan’s alleged affair with Cornish, a 24-year-old Australian actress, was common knowledge around Austin, Texas where the two were shooting the new film “Stop Loss.”
Now, a crippling fear of legal reprisals means that we should mention that the official line by the slaves of Abbie Cornish and Ryan Phillippe falls somewhere between no comment and outright denial. But an affair with Abbie Cornish would go some way to explaining the split between Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon. And good luck to Ryan, we say – because in a month or two, Abbie Cornish is probably going to be more famous than him anyway, so he should ride the glory while he can.
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