Reese Witherspoon’s daughter Ava Phillippe speaks out about her ‘intense’ issues with anxiety

‘You have every right to feel however you do,’ influencer tells her Instagram followers

Reese Witherspoon’s daughter Ava Phillippe has opened up about her ongoing struggles with anxiety.

The 24-year-old spoke candidly about her mental health during a Q&A session on her Instagram Story over the weekend. In her since-expired story, which has been reported by E! News, Phillippe revealed that she’s struggled with anxiety as both a child and teen.

“I’ve dealt with anxiety for as long as I can remember, and it was especially intense for me as a kid and teenager,” she said.

When asked how she deals with her anxiety, Phillippe explained that “there is no one solution that works for everyone”. However, she also shared some of her own advice for how to manage the mental health condition, encouraging her followers not to “invalidate [their] feelings”.

“You have every right to feel however you do, even if it seems weird to others, and being hard on yourself won’t help you feel better or find a solution,” she said.

She then advised her followers to take deep breaths, specifically “a few more than you think you need”. Phillippe also encouraged people to focus on “one to three things” that they can “smell, touch, hear etc,” when struggling with anxiety “in that moment”.

“And remember: this feeling will pass, even if you have to ride it out for awhile,” she wrote, before confessing the “bad habit” she has when coping with anxiety: Picking her skin.

“It’s just so tempting for some reason,” she added. “But I think I’ve been better about not doing that as I’ve gotten older.”

This isn’t Phillippe’s first time opening up about her personal life on social media. In a post shared to her Instagram Story in January 2022, the daughter of Reese Witherspoon and ex-husband Ryan Phillippe discussed her sexuality, noting that she’s received a lot of questions about if she “likes boys or girls”.

In response, she simply said: “I’m attracted to...people!” she wrote. “Gender is whatever.”

Days after sharing that post, she also hit back at the criticism that she’d been receiving on social media, telling her followers that she had no problem blocking any “hateful” Instagram users.

“QUICK REMINDER: I can and will block profiles commenting bigoted/hateful messages under my posts,” Phillippe wrote. “My Instagram profile is not a place for cruelty/hate speech and I intend to do what I can to keep it that way. Peace and Love.”

Her recent comments about her anxiety came after Witherspoon shared a new photo with her daughter, in which they shocked fans with their resemblance to one another.

In August, the actor shared the picture on her Instagram, where she captioned it: “Summer nights with my favourite daughter.” The photo showed the pair both in strapless tops and matching black sunglasses, as Phillipped commented on the post with: “Looove you!”

Fans took to the comments to note how the influencer, 23, looks just like her actress mother, 47. “Twinning,” one comment read. “Okay I can’t tell you two apart,” another fan agreed.