Reese Witherspoon ‘Grieved’ and ‘Cried’ When Her Kids Left for College

Reese Witherspoon is recalling how she reacted when her two oldest kids left to attend college away from home.

The actress, 49, admitted that sending daughter Ava Phillippe, 26, and son Deacon Phillippe, 21 — whom she shares with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe — to college was full of tears.

“I grieved their going to college and I cried in their rooms,” the Morning Show star said in the Sept. 20 episode of The Interview podcast of of Ava and Deacon’s milestones. “One year, one of them didn’t come home for Christmas and I sat in their bed and just cried.”

The proud mother, who also shares 12-year-old son Tennessee Toth with ex-husband Jim Toth, explained why the change was particularly challenging.

“It’s a loss because you do everything for them,” she said. “You take the food out of your mouth, the coat off your back. You don’t sleep.”

The actress continued, “You don’t sleep because you’re either taking care of their physical needs when they’re little. Or when they’re older, you’re just so worried all the time that they’re gonna get in a car accident or they’re gonna come home or there’s gonna be drugs involved.”

But Witherspoon acknowledged that watching her kids grow up is just part of the process: “You just have every worry the parents have, you know? And then one day, it’s kind of like, if you’ve done your job, you did the right things, they go,” she said.

“It makes me teary right now. It’s just really hard. But you know you did the right things,” the mother of three added.

Witherspoon’s relationship with her older kids has since changed, and now she thinks of them as “incredible friends.”

“Ava will call me and just be like a great friend. Deacon calls me all the time we hang out in New York and he’ll tell me about cool restaurants and I’ll be like, ‘Great. Can you get a reservation?’ Because he can get better reservations than I can now,” she said.

Elsewhere in the conversation, the actress spoke about her different approach to parenting her youngest son, Tennessee.

“Whenever I lose my cool,” she said, “I turn to my youngest and I go, ‘You got to call your brother and sister. They wore me out. I’m so tired. Like, eat the cookie. Go to bed late. Just do it, you know, but like, think about how it’s going to make you feel.‘ ”

“And then like beyond that, I’m so tired. I’ve been parenting for 25 years,“ she added.

Witherspoon exclusively opened up to PEOPLE in 2023 about dropping Deacon off at New York University.

“It means you did your job right,” she said. “And I’m so proud of my kids. They’re thriving in the world and I’m so happy for them.”

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Ava attended University of California in Berkeley. In 2019, Witherspoon told Ellen DeGeneres how she felt about dropping Ava off at college.

“It’s weird when your children go away to college. It’s hard,” she said. “And I never imagined how it felt for my mom. I might’ve gone into her empty room, laid down on her bed and cried when she went to college. But it’s okay, she’s coming back. Apparently, they come back, right? I thought she’d be gone.”