Reese Witherspoon’s father, John Witherspoon, was taken to the hospital on Friday.
A source says the 84-year-old was found lying face down near the pool at his home in Nashville, Tennessee. Another resident noticed him from their balcony and alerted the doorman, who then found him by the pool.
“The doorman and building manager rolled him over and they said, ‘Dr. Witherspoon, are you OK?’” the source told Page Six. “He blinked his eyes, and that’s when he was rushed to the hospital.”
Local officials confirmed that a medical emergency happened at the building on Friday, though they did not share who was involved.
John and his wife, Mary Elizabeth, known as Betty, raised Reese and her older brother in Nashville. Both parents worked in medicine. Betty was a nurse, and John was a surgeon who specialised in ears, nose, and throat care. John also served in the US Army Reserves and was stationed in Germany for a period when Reese was young.
In the 1990s, John and Betty separated, though this wasn’t publicly known until 2012, when Betty filed a lawsuit after learning John had remarried without officially divorcing her.
Betty, who had read about John’s new marriage to Tricianne Taylor in the local newspaper, asked for his new marriage to be canceled. At the time, she said they had lived apart due to personal struggles within the marriage, including alcohol, infidelity and hoarding from John’s end.
By 2018, Betty shared that she and John had gotten back together and were living as a married couple again.
