Reese Witherspoon Takes Down Renee Zellweger’s ‘Cruel’ Face-Shaming Critics

The Hollywood star wants to know why women keep tearing each other down.

It’s been a tough few months for Renee Zellweger after photos of her looking dramatically unrecognizable on the red carpet sparked a Twitter-Tsunami of consternation – and plastic surgery accusations - last month.

Hollywood friend Reese Witherspoon isn’t having any of it and was pretty blunt in her defence of the intense criticisms this week at a roundtable discussion with Julianne Moore, Patricia Arquette, Amy Adams and Hilary Swank.

Asked about her thoughts this week by The Hollywood Reporter she snapped back: ‘It’s horrible. It’s cruel, rude and disrespectful, and I can go on and on. It bothers me immensely.’

Reese went on to question women in general and their motives asking: ‘I know this is so Pollyanna of me, but why - and it's particularly women - why do they have to tear women down?’

‘And why do we have to tear other women down to build another woman up? It drives me crazy. Like, this one looks great without her makeup but that one doesn't look good without her makeup, and it's all just a judgment and assault that I don't - look, men are prey to it as well. I just don't think it's with the same sort of ferocity.’

It wasn’t just Reese who had powerful words to say about women and their lack of support for each other. Speaking about the nude photo hacking scandal that targeted actresses like Jennifer Lawrence this year, Patricia Arquette called out the victim blaming the hacking sparked amongst other women.

Arquette explained: "That society thinks it's okay [to hack the photos], that it's their fault - that's deviant. That's what we're teaching our kids, that if somebody messes up or does what they want in their private life, they're stupid and you can, basically, communally molest them."

Do you agree with Reese and Patricia? Are women too hard on each other? You shared your opinions on Facebook and although most of you agreed that women can be far too hard on each other, some disagreed arguing that Hollywood stars offer unrealistic notions of how we all should look.

Martina Steiner said: ' I don't agree with Reese..they live in their "Hollywood world" where the unnatural wrinkleless face standard is okay. But there are millions of women all over the world who have small wages and they are getting naturally older but these celebs set out this forever-young-image that is not possible to follow...'

However, Grace Lothian argues 'Women are far to hard on one another. And it just fuels the fire for men. If we continue to put each other down it just allows men to do the same.'

'Yes women are to quick to tear one another down!' Sheree Aliethea Orelaja agreed. 'We should be building each other up , we are all sisters!!'