Witherspoon was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to John Witherspoon, a surgeon, and Betty Reese, a nurse and college professor. She is a direct descendant of Scottish-born John Witherspoon, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and sixth president of Princeton University, who was also a Presbyterian minister. Because her father worked for the US military in Wiesbaden, Germany, she lived there for four years as a small child. After returning to the United States, Witherspoon spent much of her childhood and adolescence in Nashville, Tennessee. She has an older brother, John, who works as a real estate broker. After graduating from the prestigious private all-girl's Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, she attended Stanford University as a literature major. After completing a year of her studies, she left Stanford to pursue her acting career.