Shailene Woodley has rarely addressed her former relationship with NFL star Aaron Rodgers, but The Secret Life of the American Teenager alum recently opened up about their time together.
“I haven’t shared much about my relationship with Aaron because it always makes me cry. It was not right. But it was beautiful,” Shailene, 33, told Outside magazine during an interview published on Tuesday, December 3.
Shailene admitted that she “had a really awful, traumatic thing happen in early 2022,” and while the former Big Little Lies star didn’t specifically mention their breakup as the “traumatic” event, that was the year she and Aaron, 41, called off their engagement.
“I felt like I lost my soul, my self, my happiness, my joy,” Shailene told the outlet. “I really understood depression and anxiety and, like, complete soul detachment.”
The Divergent actress revealed that she remained in the “toxic situation” simply because she was “empathizing with someone else.”
“Empathy kind of kept me in this loop of feeling everything for everyone,” Shailene continued.
However, the climate change advocate gave credit to her longtime friend and stylist, Kris Zero, with helping her come out of her depression.
“I knew I was depressed when I looked at a tree and felt nothing,” Shailene explained. “That was the lowest low of my life.”
Thanks to Kris’ penchant for blasting music to wake Shailene up every morning, she slowly began to feel better. That doesn’t mean the Fault in Our Stars actress was grateful at first for Kris’ interference.
“Sometimes I was so angry at her,” Shailene said. “But then we’d go surf, and for ten minutes that day I thought life could be OK again. Then the depression would come back and she’d go, ‘We’re volunteering at the horse ranch!’ And we’d find a random f–king horse ranch, and we’d clean up horse s–t.”
She continued, “We’d clean hooves and brush the horses, and for 20 minutes that day I thought life could be OK again. And then the depression came back and she’d wake me up the next morning and go, ‘Let’s go on a hike and bring trash bags and clean up trash!’”
Ultimately, six months later, Shailene felt her depression begin to fade.
Rumors of a romance between Shailene and the Jets quarterback began swirling in July 2020, the same month Aaron and NASCAR racecar driver Danica Patrick called it quits. Aaron hinted at a new girlfriend during his September 2020 appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, but he never mentioned Shailene by name.
“I have made decisions and changes and habits that put me in a lot better headspace,” Aaron said at the time. “There’s just a lot of things that have come together in my life over the last few months that have really been enjoyable.”
A source confirmed to Us Weekly in February 2021 that the two were officially dating. The insider said that Shailene and Aaron had “started off as friends” before “things turned romantic.” Aaron and Shailene mostly kept their relationship out of the spotlight, and Aaron shocked everyone when he announced he was engaged during the NFL Honors broadcast just a few days later.
However, their love wasn’t meant to be and the pair called off their engagement just one year later.
“While Shailene is supportive of Aaron’s career, he put football first and they were barely spending any time together,” one source told In Touch at the time. “She felt he neglected their relationship. Neither of them was happy.”
The couple continued to date after ending their engagement, but by May 2022, they had officially split for good.
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