Reese Witherspoon speaks on arrest: I panicked

(CNN) -- After canceling TV appearances in light of her disorderly conduct arrest last month, Reese Witherspoon is ready to talk.

The 37-year-old actress sat down with "Good Morning America" Thursday to explain just what happened in Atlanta on April 19, when Witherspoon allegedly interfered with the arrest of her husband, Jim Toth, on a drunk driving charge.

But it wasn't just the allegations of drunk driving that caught attention - it was the star's reported dialogue, as described in the police report. "Do you know my name?" a Georgia state trooper recalled Witherspoon saying. "You're about to find out who I am."

Speaking with "GMA's" George Stephanopoulos, Witherspoon could only say that it was "one of those nights."

"We went out to dinner in Atlanta, and we had one too many glasses of wine, and we thought we were fine to drive and we absolutely were not," she said. "It's completely unacceptable, and we are so sorry and embarrassed. We know better and we shouldn't have done that."

While the couple could've taken a car service or a taxi, they "made a mistake," Witherspoon said. "It was just poor judgment ... just bad judgment, you know?"

But as for those comments she made to the police officer, Witherspoon doesn't know where that came from.



"I have no idea what I was saying ... I saw him arresting my husband, and I literally panicked," Witherspoon recalled. "I said all kinds of crazy things. I told him I was pregnant, I'm not pregnant ... I had no idea what I was talking about. I'm so sorry, I was so disrespectful to him. I have police officers in my family, I work with police officers everyday, I know better. It's just unacceptable."

Now that it's all in her rearview, Witherspoon is looking at the lessons she's learned from all of this.

"When a police officer tells you to stay in the car, you stay in the car. I learned that for sure," she said, laughing. "I think I've played a lawyer in a movie so many times I think I am a lawyer, and clearly I'm not a lawyer, because I got arrested. So yeah, I learned a lot."