Ryan Phillippe has called the 2006 Oscars a “wild night altogether,” the ceremony where Reese Witherspoon won her first Academy Award and his film Crash took Best Picture. He remembers celebrating until around 5 or 6 a.m. By the end of that year, Witherspoon had filed for divorce.

Recalling the ceremony on Live with Kelly and Mark, Phillippe said Witherspoon was still backstage answering questions about her Best Actress win for Walk the Line when Crash was announced as the night’s Best Picture winner.

“It was a wild night altogether because my wife at the time, Reese Witherspoon, also won Best Actress,” he said.

Onstage, Phillippe found himself next to Morgan Freeman, who’d presented the award. It was their first meeting, and Phillippe took the opportunity to introduce himself while a producer was delivering the acceptance speech.

“Morgan Freeman was the presenter of the Best Picture and I had never met Morgan Freeman so I fanned out on stage at the Oscars,” he recalled.

The celebrations lasted well into the next morning. “We had such a fun after-party,” Phillippe said.

Witherspoon’s winning performance was as June Carter Cash opposite Joaquin Phoenix’s Johnny Cash. Crash, an ensemble drama about racial prejudice in Los Angeles, beat the widely favored Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture.

Phillippe and Witherspoon had met at her 21st birthday party, starred together in Cruel Intentions and married in 1999. Their separation followed in 2006, months after the Oscars.

They share daughter Ava and son Deacon. In May, the former couple reunited to celebrate Deacon’s graduation from New York University.