A post shared by Tara Reid (@tarareid)

Tara Reid has a longer interview with Entertainment Tonight. She’s promoting a movie that she stars in and executive produces called Masha’s Mushroom. It’s a thriller and co-stars Vivica A. Fox, Beverly D’Angelo and Billy Zane. I went into this thinking that Tara sounds spaced out and like she’s “maintaining,” as Kaiser calls it. That’s when someone is just partially in the bag and is trying to act sober. Tara is a mumbler and it took me a minute to get used to that. However that just might be how she sounds and it could be due to her veneers.

Tara made some good points about how mean the press was to her in the early 2000s. Plus she was really classy and nice about everything, particularly about the incident in 2016 when Jenny McCarthy was mean to her on her show. Tara doesn’t have a DUI or any other arrests and the way she explained it she just liked to have fun. Given how we’re looking at Britney with new eyes, it may be time to re-evaluate Tara. Here’s some of what she told ET’s Deidre Behar and I’ve embedded the interview below.

On how she’s executive producing now
I love acting, it’s my favorite thing to do in the world. Becoming a producer has been so exciting. I didn’t realize how much goes into a film. It was getting slow for me. I was like ‘I’m not going to wait for a script. I’m going to create my own parts.’ I want to be a really good businesswoman. Not just acting and producing. Making my own brands. Getting into the fashion world.

She was asked if it was her goal to win an Oscar or have a number one movie
Definitely winning an Oscar. It would be amazing. Doing a movie with Meryl Streep would be really cool. Having another movie number one at the box office. You do know me well.

On her favorite 2000s memories
More celebrities hung out with celebrities then. I remember walking on the street [in New York] and [I saw myself] on four different covers. Doing the cover of Rolling Stone was really cool too. We had fun going to [events]. Just doing it all together was fun.

On if she’s still in touch with Paris or Kim K
Kim just sent me her new clothing line. That was really nice of her. Nicky Hilton I talk to sometimes. Paris. Everyone has had their ups and downs with each other. I’m just really proud of everyone because they’ve done so well.

On Jenny McCarthy’s mean interview with her in 2016
She was just a nasty person. She went places you just don’t go. I’ve never had beef with her or anything. I was thinking ‘what are you doing? Why are you picking on me?’ I was more in shock that it happened. [She hasn’t reached out to me.] That will not be patched. I’m over it and I don’t really care. [Amy Schumer was] so sweet that she reached out to me like that.

On how she was treated in the early 2000s by the press
I do feel like it’s slowly but surely changing. Women have a lot of power now which they didn’t have as much then. It’s refreshing that everyone is starting to talk about it. [Being unfairly labeled] has been going on in my career for a very long time.

That’s also why I started to do this, because if I don’t fix this, it’s not going to get fixed. People are going to realize how smart I am, how I’m producing, how I’m creating all these things. Then they’re going to have to stop because they can’t keep picking on you. It was almost cool to pick on me.

On if those labels hurt her career
Of course. It was definitely hard to get in the room for a lot of things. I didn’t work for a while. That was really frustrating. I didn’t really do that much. Danced on a table… I never got in trouble or [got] a DUI or did anything bad really. I felt really bullied by the studios and by the people and very misjudged. All the girls I did grow up with, they got rewarded for it. I was like ‘what’s going on, why am I the only one?’ It didn’t make sense to get punished for having fun.

[From ET Online on YouTube]

Once I watched this interview a second time to transcribe it I came away with a much better impression of Tara. She made a lot of good points. I think if Tara got sober and was open about that she might have been able to get a foothold on her career easier. The same is true for Lindsay Lohan. Paris Hilton has always been an a-hole, but she’s clear spoken and skilled at promoting herself. Tara’s career has struggled because we’ve seen her struggling, even up until a few years ago. I’m not saying that was fair. The interviewer brought up the fact we don’t treat men like that and Tara then focused on the fact that things are changing for women. I like to see Tara healthy and shooting her shot. I want good things for her.

Here’s that interview

A post shared by Tara Reid (@tarareid)

A post shared by Tara Reid (@tarareid)

A post shared by Tara Reid (@tarareid)