Reese Witherspoon asks, “Do You Know My Name?” Then Gets Arrested

There’s an urban legend that takes place in a Montana restaurant some years back. Jane Fonda and Ted Turner go into the restaurant that doesn’t take reservations, the hostess tells them that there is a 45 minute wait, and then Jane Fonda says, “Do you know who I am?” The hostess says that she does know who she is, but can’t seat them. Jane asks for the manager and the manager says the same thing. She then asks for the owner and the owner comes out and Jane asks again, “Do you know who I am?” The owner replies, “Yes, I do…. Do you know who I am? I am the owner of this restaurant and a Vietnam Veteran. Not only will you not get a table ahead of all of my friends and neighbors here, but you also will not be eating in my restaurant tonight or any other night. Goodbye.” You would think that since this urban legend has been around for a long time (it would have happened while Jane and Ted were married 1991-2001) many celebrities would avoid this line of questioning, but unfortunately many celebrities have not learned.

Reese Witherspoon is just the latest celebrity to drop the “Do you know who I am?” question. Reese and her husband, Jim Toth, were arrested early Friday morning and briefly jailed after he was pulled over under suspicion of driving while intoxicated in Atlanta. Toth faces a DUI charge after driving in the wrong lane while the actress, 37, was arrested for disorderly conduct, according to the Atlanta Department of Corrections.

Variety first reported this incident and obtained records of the arrest:

Reese has since issued an apology:

I think Jimmy Kimmel summed up this whole Reese arrest nicely, “The police report says she asked the cop ‘Do you know my name? You’re about to find out who I am.’ Does that ever work? ‘Do you know who I am?’ is second only to ‘Do you know who my father is?’ It’s a bad question because the answer is either ‘no’ — which is embarrassing — or ‘yes, and you’re going to jail.’”

 Image via People