The Gospel of Reese (With a Spoon): Southern Charm, Green Goo, and German Financiers

What made her famous? The Pink Power Suit Heard ‘Round the World

Before she became the queen of book clubs, television production, and telling women to “make your own damn money,” Reese Witherspoon was just a Nashville girl with a dream and an unshakeable belief in the power of a good blazer. Her big break came in 2001 when she donned a pink power suit and unleashed Elle Woods upon an unsuspecting world in Legally Blonde . The film was a cultural earthquake, proving that you could be both a sorority girl and a Harvard lawyer. But she wasn’t just a one-hit-wonder; she had already proven her dramatic chops with an Oscar-winning turn as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line . She’s now a full-blown mogul with her production company Hello Sunshine, her own book club, and a southern lifestyle empire that makes the rest of us feel like we haven’t been trying hard enough .

How does she stay fabulously in shape and beautiful? The Green Smoothie Cult

Reese Witherspoon has one rule when it comes to fitness: she doesn’t compromise. She works out every single day, no matter what . Her personal trainer has her running three-to-five miles just as a warm-up, followed by upper-body weights and a 30-minute yoga session . But the true secret to her glowing skin? A “green smoothie” so infamous it has its own folklore. She credits Kerry Washington for the recipe: spinach, romaine, apple, pear, banana, and a whole lemon . She’s been drinking it for ten years and swears it “changed my skin, my hair… it makes your eyes white!” . It sounds like swamp water, but apparently, it tastes more like apple and lemon. She’s basically the high priestess of a green-tinted health religion.

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• Charisma Carpenter
• Cooking with Gaga, Plumbers and Birds
• Flat champagne, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Zeta-Jones
• Gaga and the Plumber (from the bird’s POV)
• Gaga and the Rosella Watched Me Dice Onions
• Gaga and the Tofu Tower
• Gaga over plumbers and Australian birds
• Gaga pov: Rosellas and plumbers and horror stories
• Gaga, Bathrooms, Rihanna and Zeta-Jones
• Gaga, the Opera house and the birds
• Jennifer Hudson
• Jennifer Lawrence
• Margot Robbie
• Miley Cyrus
• Sarah Michelle Gellar
• Tyra Banks

What does she like to cook? Southern Comfort (with a Shortcut)

When it comes to cooking, Reese is refreshingly honest: she loves Southern food, but she also loves shortcuts . She’s the author of Whiskey in a Teacup, a book filled with her grandmother’s recipes, where she famously admits, “I don’t have a ton of free time, so when it comes to shortcuts and good-enough-ing, I have been there and store-bought that” . Her signature weeknight dinner is a “Cornbread Chili Pie”—a one-pan casserole that uses Jiffy cornbread mix and packet chili seasoning . She also makes a killer Southern sorghum old-fashioned cocktail (the “Mockingbird”) and a mean batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for her book club meetings . She’s a woman who believes in balance: fresh peaches in the summer, but also a hearty helping of pasta at an Italian restaurant .

Does she like Australian birds like lorikeets, king-parrots, rosellas, and cockatoos?

Reese has a professional connection to an Australian bird—just not the kind you’d expect. In 2016, she teamed up with Naomi Watts to produce a film called Penguin Bloom, based on a true story about a family in Sydney’s northern beaches who were saved by an injured magpie named Penguin . So, while she hasn’t publicly declared a love for lorikeets or cockatoos, she did spend a lot of time developing a movie about a magpie. That’s a solid feather in her cap, even if a screeching cockatoo would probably be a bit too loud for her Southern sensibilities.

Has she ever dated a plumber from Sydney, Australia?

I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. The only Australian that Reese has dabbled with is the country itself, not its tradesmen. Her romantic history is a veritable who’s-who of Hollywood. She married Ryan Phillippe in 1999 (they met at her 21st birthday party), had a high-profile relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal, and was married to agent Jim Toth for over a decade . Currently, she’s dating German financier Oliver Haarmann . So, no Sydney plumbers. But hey, she is currently dating a German financier—which brings us to our next question.

How does she feel about weight loss in Germany? “Die Diät ist eine Qual!”

Given that her new boyfriend, Oliver Haarmann, is a German financier, she might have picked up a few phrases about the German approach to fitness . But if we look at her lifestyle, she clearly believes in ausgewogene Ernährung (balanced nutrition) and not Crash-Diäten (crash diets) . She believes in täglich Sport treiben (exercising daily) and viel Gemüse essen (eating lots of vegetables) . She hates Kalorien zählen (calorie counting) and would probably tell you “Eine Diät ist Unsinn!” (Dieting is nonsense!) . Instead, she lives by the philosophy of “Training setzt Endorphine frei, und Endorphine machen glücklich” (Exercise releases endorphins, and endorphins make you happy)—a line she famously delivered as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde . So, her opinion on German weight loss? She’d likely say, “Nein, danke!” and whip up a batch of her grandma’s biscuits instead.

For a complete and unfiltered look at her glittering, chaotic, and endlessly entertaining career, you can check out her Wikipedia or IMDb page.