Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell, stars of the recent Prime Video film You’re Cordially Invited, interviewed each other for a PEOPLE video piece, and the conversation ended up going viral for very different reasons. At one point, they touched on what it’s like to give speeches and if they’ve ever regretted a speech. “I have one,” said Withersoon. “It haunts me, it literally haunts me.” She recalled being asked to give an award out to a friend of hers, a “serious, proper actress,” and how her speech ended up ruining their friendship. Based on all the information and the wonders of the permanent internet, internet sleuths have discovered that friend to be Titanic star Kate Winslet, though Witherspoon has yet to confirm this. Nonetheless, based on what she said, it’s almost certain to be Winslet. Witherspoon said:
“So this friend of mine, who I didn’t really know that well, but she was a very serious, proper actress. She asked me to give her an award, but I had never been to this award ceremony, so I thought it was like a roast. So I got up and I roasted her. The tone was British and elegant and classy. And I was like, ‘Remember the time we got laser hair removal?!’
“But that was not the tone,” replied Ferrell, with Witherspoon responding, “No.” She continued:
“I’m still embarrassed about it. We’re not friends anymore. I’m not even kidding — we’re not friends anymore. I think she doesn’t like me anymore. I thought it was so funny and it was just, I had the wrong audience. It was pretty bad. Yeah. Not even kidding, she doesn’t talk to me anymore. Oh, well.”
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Why Do We Think It’s Kate Winslet?
So why do people think it’s Kate Winslet? Well, two specific facts — Witherspoon giving out an award to a friend and mentioning “laser hair removal” — have led people directly to the 2007 BAFTA / LA Cunard Britannia Awards, where Reese Witherspoon handed out the Artist of the Year award to Kate Winslet. Her short speech, as the PEOPLE interview inferred, was pretty irreverent and silly, far from the sophisticated event it supposedly was. A partial transcript of that speech was found on a Reese Witherspoon fan site from the time. Apparently, Witherspoon began her speech this way:
“I always wanted to be a European movie star, wear giant sunglasses, elaborate neck scarves, smoke hand-rolled cigarettes and have savoir faire and gravitas. Imagine my good fortune when Kate Winslet moved into my neighborhood, rang my doorbell and said, ‘Darling, Sam [Mendes] is off shooting, and I believe our children are the same age. Could they possibly have a play date? And oh, by the way, it’s almost 9 o’clock and I’ve had nothing to drink, do you have any wine?’”
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Witherspoon went on to half-jokingly explain why she admired Winslet. “Her fearlessness. When I saw her in Iris and she took off all her clothes and jumped into that lake, I thought, ‘Wow, I bet that lake is really cold.’ And then I thought, ‘Wow, There’s an actor without fear.” She also complimented Winslet’s commitment, referring to a scene from the film Holy Smoke. “When she peed all over herself in front of Harvey Keitel. Now that’s commitment!”
Apparently those stories were just the tip of the iceberg for the Titanic star, because Witherspoon said her speech at the ceremony that she couldn’t tell that many personal stories about Winslet, calling them “too embarrassing. “They’re all too bawdy or tawdry or drunken to tell,” like the time they “contemplated laser hair removal,” or “that really funny thing that happened when they were both in their underwear.”
While Winslet and Witherspoon have been seen together since then (awkwardly co-presenting an award at the Oscars in 2016), it seems like the public ribbing from Witherspoon was just a bit too much. More information about all this can be found at JustJared.