More than two years after her engagement to NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers ended, actress Shailene Woodley is opening up about her “broken heart.”
In a new candid interview, the “Big Little Lies” actress, now 32, said she is not receptive to any performative behavior and got real about past relationships.
“I’m very uninterested in the performance of people at this moment in life. I’m uninterested in the external value that we put on everything,” she told online magazine Bustle.
Shailene Woodley and Aaron Rodgers ended their engagement in February 2022. (Michael Buckner/Variety/Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“I find the performance of being something else in order to receive love or acceptance or work from others to be the ultimate form of soul death.”
Probed by the magazine to explain how she got to this point, Woodley then alluded to why she and the 4-time NFL MVP called it quits in 2022.
Shailene Woodley first confirmed she was engaged to Aaron Rodgers during an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.” (Corine Solberg/Getty Images)
“Just a broken heart. A broken heart that healed and broke again. I fell in love over and over with unavailability. I’m very open as a human. I love easy, and I care easy, but I do not love lightly, and I do not care lightly,” she shared.
“It’s really taken me a lot of time to understand that it’s not on me to fix or heal or do anything about [a relationship] other than protect the deep care and love that I have for the world and for my people. Ultimately, that has helped me walk away without the need to understand why certain things didn’t play out the way that I may have desired them to.”
Shailene Woodley alluded to Aaron Rodgers being unavailable. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for TIME/Dustin Satloff)
Woodley and Rodgers were first linked in 2020. At the NFL Honors Ceremony in February 2021, Rodgers mentioned his “fiancée” during his MVP acceptance speech. Woodley confirmed they were engaged the following year, during an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.”
At the time, Woodley shared that when the media learned of their engagement, it was old news to her and Rodgers, who had been “engaged for a while.”
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“I give all of myself,” Woodley continued about how she is in a relationship. “I used to be a person who, if you crossed me and disrespected that, would continue to give and give. And now you cross me, I respectfully go, ‘Thank you so much for that information. Have a beautiful life. I wish you well.’ Not interested.”
Although she is certainly looking for love, Woodley was quick to admonish any notion that she is not where she should be in life for her age.
Shailene Woodley spoke about her desire to have a family and be in a relationship. (Stefania D’Alessandro/Getty Images)
“I want to be a mom,” she continued, of her future plans. “My God, I want to cook someone dinner every night and travel the world with them and have pillow talk and celebrate their joys and their purpose and their destinies and have mine also be celebrated. But I don’t have a ‘that should have happened by now’ kind of thing.”
“Maybe the physical discomfort I walked through when I was younger taught me not to have expectations,” she added, referencing a period of time that she’s previously described as a “very scary physical situation.”
“I wake up every day and I say out loud, ‘I’m so excited for the magic and miracles that are going to happen today.’”
Shailene Woodley did not disclose her current relationship status. (JC Olivera/FilmMagic/Getty Images)
Since their split, Woodley has been spotted on dates but has not made anything public. Rodgers was most recently linked to Mallory Edens.
Representatives for both Woodley and Rodgers did not immediately return Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
