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Meg Ryan On Her Divorce: I Didn't Leave My Marriage For Russell Crowe | The Oprah Winfrey Show | OWN - YouTube
Channel: OWN
[0]
- So what happened to you?
[1]
What happened?
[2]
You kind of disappeared.
[4]
Yeah.
[5]
You were everywhere, and
then you disappeared.
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That was calculated, right?
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Well, it was definitely
time to take a break.
[12]
It was definitely time
for me to take a break
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and just regroup and
see where I was at.
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And, you know, I've been an
actress and famous person
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since I've been 19 years old.
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And I just needed to be with
my son and figure out my life
[25]
and see what I wanted.
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When you're that busy
for that long, for me,
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I felt like I was very reactive
about my life as opposed
[33]
to being proactive.
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So I just got still, which was
a very, very necessary and good
[38]
thing for me.
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So I know you went
through-- we all know you went
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through a very public divorce.
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What did you learn from that?
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Well, so many things, right?
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But I would mostly--
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I couldn't even say mostly.
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I think there's a lot of feeling
I wish it wasn't so public.
[54]
OPRAH: Yeah.
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You know, that was a really
hard aspect of the whole thing.
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I mean, the tabloid aspect of
it was really heartbreaking.
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And it was, for me, something
I never really wanted
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to talk about in depth
because I have a little boy
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and because I feel like you
can never really win in the way
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a tabloid tells a story.
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It's a very black and white,
very overly simplistic
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moral universe that
certain people's
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stories are supposed to fit in.
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And they don't.
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So that was one aspect
of it that was--
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Well, that is why the
tabloids work, you know?
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MEG: That's right.
[90]
I mean, obviously
I've been a part of it
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for all of my public life.
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And that's why it
works, because it's
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a little piece of
the truth mixed
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with somebody
else's idea of what
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they think should be happening.
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And people hold onto that.
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And people say, oh, yes, yes,
I know it's true because--
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and what I think the
greater public never seems
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to understand-- and so
there's no reason to even
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try to get people to understand
is what I think at this point--
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is that when people make up
stories about you, it hurts.
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Yeah.
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And when people violate
the truth of you, it hurts.
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But people think that because
you're famous, oh, well,
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then it shouldn't,
because you're rich,
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and you're famous
and so therefore--
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And it is a problem that
it's hard to ask people
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to relate to honestly,
because it's not
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a problem that everybody has.
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I mean, certainly you can have
a problem with your office
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building knowing something
about you that's not true
[146]
or your extended
family or something.
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But you know, it's a very--
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not highbrow, but kind of
like an abstract problem
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for this much of the populace.
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Do you know what I mean?
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Yeah, but I remember years
ago I was on talking about it.
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I think it was the
after show, and I
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was talking about something
one of the tabloids had said.
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And a woman stood up and
said, Oprah, what do we care?
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Basically, she said what
do you think we care?
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Because look at you living
the life that you're living.
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And, you know, when
I'm in my office
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and somebody says something
about me that's not true,
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and everybody's around the
water cooler talking about it,
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I have no recourse either.
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So it really is the same
thing, only it's just bigger.
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It's just expanded.
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OPRAH: Yeah.
[187]
So let's talk-- when you
were dating Russell Crowe,
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you took a lot of heat for that.
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MEG: Yeah.
OPRAH: Yeah.
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Yeah.
OPRAH: What was true?
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What wasn't true?
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Well, my marriage was a--
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I think I have to talk
about it in a way that's
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most respectful to my son.
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Yeah.
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MEG: It was a very
unhealthy marriage,
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and it was pretty
much not a happening
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marriage for a very long time.
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I probably should've
left much earlier.
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And I'm very sad
actually that it all
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had to come apart in the
way that it seemed to have,
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you know?
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It was never about another man.
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It was only about what--
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my and Dennis's relationship
just couldn't sustain,
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you know?
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And I think once
the tabloids get
[231]
a hold of three celebrity names,
you're just really in trouble.
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Your name goes on
that board every week,
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and there it is, baby.
Yeah.
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That's right.
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Do you think you took a
public bullet for something
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that wasn't really your fault?
You do?
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Yeah.
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OPRAH: In what Way
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Well, I think I did.
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And I think, honestly,
Russell did too, because he
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wasn't a home wrecker.
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He took a lot of heat for that.
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And he had a lot of grace,
frankly, about not saying--
[257]
not talking about the
things that he knew
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were going on in my marriage.
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And I always-- I'll be
very grateful to him
[263]
for a long time for that.
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OPRAH: Really?
- Yeah.
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Yeah.
And he was around at--
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you know, divorce
is an impossibly
[269]
hard transition in your life.
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And he was there
for a few months.
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And you know, I didn't leave
my marriage for Russell Crowe.
[278]
I left my marriage--
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OPRAH: Because your
marriage wasn't working.
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My marriage was not working.
[283]
OPRAH: Yeah.
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And so I think this is really
interesting, because obviously
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I do this show, so I talk
to women all the time
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who are in bad relationships.
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I bet there's an estimate--
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I don't know if anybody's
ever done this--
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of when it starts
to go wrong, you
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know it really
can't be repaired,
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how long do you stay after
you know it's really over?
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I think you want it
not to be over very much.
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OPRAH: Yeah.
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But I hear people-- for some
people it's like seven years.
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It's like I knew seven years
ago it wasn't going to--
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I knew five years.
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OPRAH: You knew five years?
- Yeah, easily.
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- Really?
- Mm-hmm.
[318]
And people have children,
there's this whole thing
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that you need to sustain.
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There's a lot of-- even if
your marriage isn't good,
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and even if you need
to get out, you still
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feel guilty somehow,
which, you know,
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maybe that's a female thing.
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I don't know.
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But it's crazy how you
have to talk yourself
[338]
into protecting yourself.
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And so there are
times in, I think,
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every woman's life
where she really does
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need to get out
and expand and do
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all those things that make her
the best version of herself.
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OPRAH: OK.
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This is so interesting too.
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I say this to my friends
all the time who seem to--
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you know, they
buy the magazines.
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And they love the celebrities.
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They love the celebrities.
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And I always say the
red carpet is just that.
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It is a red carpet.
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And there are people taking
pictures on the red carpet.
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And that is all it is, because
you don't know any more
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than there are some people
who took some pictures
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on the red carpet.
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So photos that you were taking
on the carpet, you and Dennis,
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during that period
of five years.
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Well, honestly I
think towards the end,
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we weren't even showing up
to the red carpet together.
[392]
[LAUGHTER]
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That's the truth.
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Yeah.
- Yeah.
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MEG: A little bit,
but not really.
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Yeah.
[399]
And you know, I still don't
identify myself with celebrity.
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It's just such-- it's
so far down on my list.
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It's always so odd for me to
talk about that, you know,
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as if the red
carpet is some kind
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of achievement or
some place that you're
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supposed to want to be.
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I mean, it's a way to somewhere.
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Yeah.
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And so you never viewed
yourself as a celebrity
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even in the height of it?
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I do.
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Obviously it's a
part of my life.
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It's a condition.
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Fame, I think of as an
arbitrarily assigned
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kind of condition in your life
that you do have to cope with.
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It's odd.
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It's not a normal experience.
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And it affects your
life in certain ways,
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like people project on you
a lot about themselves.
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And so you kind of
wade through that.
[448]
I find myself
wading through that.
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I go, oh, that's right, I'm
famous, and they think this.
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OK, so I've got to
wait like 20 minutes,
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and then we can have kind
of a normal conversation.
[455]
Mm-hmm Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
[457]
- You know?
- Oh yeah.
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And-- yeah, you know.
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Yeah.
[460]
[LAUGHTER]
[465]
Kinda.
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It's just-- it's,
you know, bizarre.
[471]
OK, so that's interesting,
because, you know,
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you were at the biggest
box office smash hit.
[477]
So at the time,
was that something
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that you could wrap your
head around, or was it just--
[482]
No, and at the
time, I was very
[487]
overwhelmed by motherhood,
new motherhood.
[490]
OPRAH: Jack, yeah.
[491]
Yeah.
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Not a good marriage.
[495]
I think fame is
also very isolating.
[498]
And so the problems
that I was having
[500]
with all of those things--
[501]
OPRAH: I think it's isolating--
may I beg to differ here?
[503]
I think it's isolating
if you allow it to be.
[505]
MEG: If you allow it to be.
I agree.
[506]
Yeah.
[506]
And I definitely
allowed it to be.
[507]
Because I see people
who are-- you know, like,
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I know a lot of famous people.
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And there are some who
are like, I can't go out.
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I can't.
[514]
I can't go out.
You know?
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And then--
[517]
Not so much that,
but more like, jeez,
[518]
if I say this to someone, is
she going to tell someone else,
[521]
and is that person going to
talk to "The National Enquirer"?
[525]
It limits your
ability to be exactly
[530]
honest with people
who you don't know as
[532]
well as you would want to know.
[533]
You know?
[534]
There's all these
strange little moments.
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And also you feel like--
[540]
for me, at the time, I
was like, no one else
[541]
has ever had this experience.
[544]
And it definitely did
isolate me, I have to say.
[546]
OPRAH: Really?
- Yeah.
[547]
Yeah.
- Yeah.
[547]
It did.
[548]
Not that I was sitting
alone, because you're
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surrounded by so many people.
[552]
But you can feel like you're
alone with the experience,
[555]
that you're just sort of--
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Did it make you bitter at all?
[558]
No, I was mostly confused.
[561]
I've been mostly
confused about it
[562]
and then kind of was
taken aback quite often.
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