Ryan Phillippe Got Nostalgic About His Marriage to Reese Witherspoon in Throwback Snapshot
Kristyn Burtt
Ryan Phillippe was all in his feelings about his ex-wife, Reese Witherspoon, when he posted a rather flirtatious throwback photo of them from 2001.
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SheKnows
Here’s a bit of early-aughts nostalgia nobody was expecting. Ryan Phillippe posted a throwback image of himself with then-wife Reese Witherspoon and the message he wrote to her makes us think he was all in his feelings over the Memorial Day Weekend. It was rather flirtatious.

The snapshot shows the former couple in a variety of stripes as they wrapped their arms behind each other’s backs. Witherspoon had a chic short bob and a pop of color with hot pink lips. Phillippe sported a mohawk and Ray-Ban shades with a bit of scruff on his face. He wrote in his Instagram Story on Monday, “We were hot and drenched in late 90’s angst @reesewitherpoon (such a cooler time than today),” he wrote on the image.

The photo, however, wasn’t taken in the 1990s, it was in July 2001 at a Legally Blonde event in the Hamptons. That movie changed the trajectory of Witherspoon’s career after making $142 million worldwide. She became “America’s Sweetheart, an eight-figure star with the power to cherry-pick projects like Sweet Home Alabama and Vanity Fair,” per The Hollywood Reporter. Elle Woods eventually led her to play June Carter Cash in the 2005 movie, Walk the Line. The Oscar-winning role also seemed to be the beginning of the end of her marriage to Phillippe which would officially be over by 2008. (His reported overlapping relationship with Abbie Cornish probably didn’t help the situation.)

However, the former dynamic duo still had two children to co-parent together, daughter Ava, 24, and son Deacon, 20. While the marriage didn’t last, Phillippe shared that they were able to have an “easy” friendship when it came to their kids. “We never really had a hard time of it. We were always both so devoted, even once we were no longer together,” he told Fox News Digital. “That made it easy. They were the priority. And you see a lot of times in these messy situations where that’s not the case, where the kids will be used as pawns or as a way to hurt the other parent, and we never did any of that stuff.”

We aren’t sure why Phillippe got so wistful about his former relationship with Witherspoon, but the timing sure is curious. He appears to be single while his ex is navigating the dating-after-divorce world after her split from her second husband, Jim Toth. She might be flirting with a New York City finance guy, but perhaps Phillippe was shooting his shot… maybe just a little bit?