Alanis Morissette has made a rare comment about her split from former fiancé Ryan Reynolds while looking back at one of the most uncomfortable interviews of her career.
Nearly 20 years after their breakup, the singer recalled being asked deeply personal questions by Howard Stern about her intimate life and explained why she now sees that interview as part of a larger problem in how women were treated.
Alanis Morissette Says Questions About Ryan Reynolds Left Her Feeling ‘Invisible’
Morissette recently looked back at her breakup with Ryan Reynolds during an interview with The Sunday Times Style. The pair started dating in 2002 and were engaged for three years before ending their relationship in 2007.
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The breakup quickly became public. Just two months later, Reynolds started dating Scarlett Johansson. The two married about 18 months later before divorcing in 2011. He later married Blake Lively in 2012.
While speaking about that difficult time, Morissette also reflected on her 2008 interview with Howard Stern. The interview later went viral because Stern repeatedly asked her personal questions about her breakup and intimate life. Looking back now, Morissette said the conversation left her feeling unseen.
“It felt like the ongoing normalization of me being invisible,” she said, adding that she would respond very differently if she were asked those same questions today. Morissette said she now believes those questions reflected a time when women were regularly expected to accept disrespectful treatment.
“I have a million questions I could ask back that would be equally inappropriate. It just became normalized to hurt women every day, call her a b****, tell her she’s a slut,” she told The Sunday Times Style.
Alanis Morissette Says The Interview Crossed A Line
During the interview, Morissette explained that the breakup influenced the album she was working on at the time. She also admitted that she was not “OK” when the relationship first ended.
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When Stern mentioned that she had once revealed she attended therapy five days a week after the breakup, Morissette replied, “Therapy’s not about the guy… It’s about me. It’s not about the guy.” Stern later asked about Reynolds moving on with Scarlett Johansson.
After a brief pause, he asked, “So what? He comes home and announces he’s with another broad?” Morissette answered, “No.” When he asked if she had seen the breakup coming, she nodded. Stern also asked if Reynolds was the kind of person who moved on quickly, and she replied, “I can’t speak for him, I have no idea.”
Morissette found happiness again when she married rapper Souleye, whose real name is Mario Treadway, in 2010. The couple now have two sons and a daughter, whose ages range from six to 15.
Morissette is no longer focused on the heartbreak itself. Instead, she is speaking openly about how she was treated during that time and why those conversations would not be acceptable today.
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