Coolidge brought Paulette back most recently in the video for Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next,” which saw the pop star take on characters from classic “chick flicks” including Legally Blonde. Coolidge credits Grande with helping her kick-start this phase of her career. “I was kind of flatlining, and you got things going for me. I just want to thank you,” Coolidge told Grande in 2022.
She’s even getting honored by the Ivy League. Though it was Witherspoon’s character who attended Harvard Law School, it was Coolidge who was honored at the IRL Harvard. In fact, she’s the Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ Woman of the Year! “I was a hostess at a restaurant here in Cambridge for a long time when I was in my teens,” she told the club while being honored, per Extra. “I think I was, like, 18 or whatever. To be walking by, you know…all these great Harvard buildings and knowing that my dad went here…there was some times when I felt like, you know, it wasn’t going to go very well….”
She continued, “My feelings as a young person and being extremely hopeful and having giant dreams and having very, very low moments too and then to be here tonight…It was all worth it, it was all worth it.” I am not crying. You are crying. You are.