Sally Field is revisiting one of Hollywood’s most talked-about love stories, reflecting on what finally pushed her to walk away from Burt Reynolds after years of emotional turmoil.

The two-time Oscar-winning actress dated Reynolds from 1976 until 1980 after meeting on the set of Smokey and the Bandit.

Though fans saw them as a golden couple, Field now paints a far different picture of their time together.

In a conversation with People Magazine, Field downplayed the scope of their collaborations, saying, “I really only did one movie with Burt, which was Smokey and the Bandit.”

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She explained that she felt confined during their later projects, adding, “The others that I was in, I was just a girl. I just was stuck there because I was sort of stuck altogether.”

Field described their relationship as “very complicated,” saying its patterns mirrored painful memories from her own past. Reynolds, ten years her senior, first reached out unexpectedly to invite her to join him in Smokey and the Bandit.

“He said, ‘It’s really awful. The script is awful, but we’re going to fix all of that because we’ll just make it up as we go along,’” Field recalled. Once filming began, she said their chemistry translated naturally into improvisation: “It was completely improvised. We’d drive off in the car with the cameras mounted, and I would go, ‘Okay, roll!’”

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The bond they formed quickly became a five-year on-and-off relationship that Field now characterizes as both loving and frightening. She noted there were sides of Reynolds that were “so wonderful and lovable,” as well as others that reminded her of darker experiences from her childhood. Field admitted that being with him felt like she was “exorcising my stepfather out of my brain.”

It was her career-defining movie, Norma Rae, that finally gave Field the strength to leave. She said the tension began when Reynolds reacted harshly to her decision to take the leading role in the 1979 film.

“It was the beginning of me pulling away when he didn’t want me to do Norma Rae, called her a [expletive], and it was because she had some sexual past. He threw the script at me,” Field alleged. Despite the blow-up, she went on to make the film and later win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.

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Field said doing Norma Rae marked the moment she began to stand her ground. “He wanted to control me, and because I was standing up, he said, ‘Boy, you’re letting this get the better of you.’ And I said, ‘This is the better of me.’”

Her growing independence drove a wedge between them. After refusing to attend the Cannes Film Festival premiere of Norma Rae, Reynolds also declined to accompany her to the Oscars when she won in 1980. For Field, this period was both painful and empowering.

“It was a standing ovation for like 10 minutes, and I started to cry,” she remembered of Cannes. “After I had worked so hard to get out of television, to even be considered for anything, and here I was.”

As Field’s success soared, their relationship collapsed completely. “Being Norma at that time was exactly what I needed,” she reflected. “I could feel my body getting stronger. Because I was having to portray how she grew up, I started to grow up, and I eventually just wouldn’t be manipulated and humiliated like that. And ultimately I left.”

Reynolds later expressed deep regret for how he had treated Field, calling her “the love of my life” in a 2015 interview with Vanity Fair. “I miss her terribly,” he said. “Even now, it’s hard on me. I don’t know why I was so stupid. Men are like that, you know.”

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Field, however, rejected that recollection years later. Speaking to Variety in 2022, she made it clear she had no desire to romanticize the past. “He was not someone I could be around,” she said. “He was just not good for me in any way.”

She added that Reynolds had rewritten his memories of their time together. “He just wanted to have the thing he didn’t have. I just didn’t want to deal with that,” she explained.

That same year, Field delivered an unexpectedly candid moment on Watch What Happens Live when asked about her worst on-screen kiss. After teasing the audience, she laughed and said, “Okay, this is gonna be a shocker, hold on folks. Burt Reynolds.”

Her reasoning was blunt but delivered with humor: “It was just not something he really did very well. I could go into detail, but you don’t want to hear it.”

Though the two did not speak for the last thirty years of Reynolds’ life, their work together remains iconic. The smoky banter and undeniable energy of Smokey and the Bandit continue to captivate fans, even as Field now views that chapter of her life through a starkly different lens.

For her, that story symbolizes growth and freedom — the moment she realized she no longer had to play a supporting role in someone else’s life.