Ryan Phillippe Wants To Prevent Ex Reese Witherspoon From Testifying In His Assault Case

Ryan Phillippe doesn’t want his ex-wife Reese Witherspoon to be questioned in the assault case between him and his ex-girlfriend Elsie Hewitt. According to court documents obtained by The Blast, Phillippe asked that the judge prevent Hewitt’s lawyers from having Witherspoon testify about their eight-year marriage.

Hewitt and Phillippe have been in an ongoing fight since 2017 after the model sued Phillippe for $1 million, alleging that he assaulted her. She claims that the pair had an argument, and according to The Blast, Phillippe grabbed her arm “so tightly that his grip left heavy bruises on her arm” and then “braced his body and violently threw her down his staircase as hard as he could.”

Since then, Hewitt has battled to get text messages between Phillippe and Witherspoon. Meanwhile, the actor has maintained that Hewitt is trying to extort money from him, claiming that he was always kind and respectful during their relationship.

But Hewitt disagrees, and she hopes that by having Witherspoon speak up about her experience being married to Phillippe that it might shed some light on her own situation. But if the 44-year-old gets his way, his ex-wife won’t be saying anything at the trial, which begins next month.

Hewitt’s legal team has sent repeated deposition notices to the Big Little Lies actress in an attempt to get her testimony as evidence for the trial. But Phillippe says that his marriage, which lasted from 1999 to 2007, has nothing to do with his relationships today.

“Although divorced, they maintain a pleasant relationship with each other and their child. The nature of their marriage and its termination, as well as their ongoing relationship could only be used in this trial for improper purposes,” wrote Phillippe’s lawyers.

Both Phillippe and Witherspoon have kept mum on the details of their divorce, which shocked fans at the time. There were rumors that the actress found out that Phillippe was cheating and that the pair had such busy careers that they just could not make things work.

In an interview with HuffPost, the Shooter star described the divorce as the most difficult thing he’d experienced.

“It was a struggle—there were a good four or five months of not being able to get out of bed. It was the worst time in my life,” he said. “You get through it. It’s a process that’s not easy, but I get less and less sad about it every day.”