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“Curious by nature. Storyteller by choice.” That’s how Reese Witherspoon defines herself in her profile description. It is that same interest for discovering new stories and attitude for creating what drove her to cofund Hello Sunshine, a media company with the goal of exploring tales with women as protagonists.
The company was valued at about $900 million back in 2021 when Whiterspoon decided to sell a majority stake. Now she is getting it back for much less.
Reese Whiterspoon sold a part of her company for $900 million, and now she is getting it back
In August 2021, Witherspoon sold her stake in Hello Sunshine to a Blackstone-backed company led by former Disney executives Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs. Nonetheless, she kept a significant share and a seat on the board.
But on October 13, 2026, she and the European studio Mediawan announced they are buying that majority back from Candle Media. Although the terms were not disclosed, Axios reported that the prices are in low-to-mid-eight figures.
Witherspoon called the deal “a homecoming” and added: “The best is still ahead.”
The problem Whiterspoon faced with Hollywood
In 2011, the scripts she received were, in her words, “abysmal [and] really demeaning.” She visited the heads of the seven major studios and asked how many movies with a female lead they were developing. The answer was almost always none, said on Harvard Business School’s Founder Mindset podcast.
At first she was frustrated, but then she realized that it was a huge white space to fill. That’s why in 2016 she co-founded Hello Sunshine, which produced hits like Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere, and The Morning Show.
Her drive comes from her teenage years, when her family went through serious money problems. She left Stanford after about a year because she couldn’t afford the tuition. “If I didn’t succeed, there wasn’t anybody coming to save me,” she said in the same podcast.