Talking about her ex-fiancé Aaron Rodgers is still hard for Shailene Woodley. During a recent interview with Outside magazine, the actress spoke about “a really awful, traumatic thing” that happened around the same time she and Aaron split up. Shailene and Aaron seemingly fell in love quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it’s not clear exactly when they began dating, sources confirmed their relationship in February 2021. Shortly after fans learned that the actress and NFL player were an item, the couple announced that they were engaged. Then, a year after announcing their engagement, they called it off.
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Shailene described the 'awful' thing that happened to her in 2022.
When speaking to Outside magazine about the “really awful, traumatic thing” that happened in “early 2022,” Shailene didn’t mention her ex-fiancé specifically. However, the magazine noted that the dark period that Shailene mentioned was around the same time that she and Aaron Rodgers called off their engagement.
Describing this dark period in her life, Shailene said, “I felt like I lost my soul, my self, my happiness, my joy. I really understood depression and anxiety and, like, complete soul detachment.”
The actress, who is also an environmental activist, opened up about what made her realize she was depressed. “I knew I was depressed when I looked at a tree and felt nothing,” she told the magazine. “That was the lowest low of my life.”
She did allude to staying in a 'toxic situation.'
Though Shailene was not specific about what she was dealing with at the time, she said her empathy for “someone else” kept her in a “toxic situation” for some time. “Empathy kind of kept me in this loop of feeling everything for everyone,” she admitted to the magazine. Elsewhere in the interview, she revealed that she still struggles to talk about her relationship with Aaron because of the emotions surrounding it.
“I haven’t shared much about my relationship with Aaron because it always makes me cry,” she confessed. She noted the relationship “was not right. But it was beautiful.”
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The actress previously said that their engagement wasn't as sudden as people thought.
When Shailene and Aaron shared their engagement news, it caught people off guard because it seemed so sudden. People had just found out that they were dating. Additionally, Aaron and former racecar driver Danica Patrick split in July 2020, just months before Shailene and Aaron got engaged. During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in February 2021, Shailene said she and Aaron had been “engaged for a while.”
Describing her relationship with the football player, she said, “He’s, first off, just a wonderful, incredible human being. But I never thought I’d be engaged with somebody who threw balls for a living. Like, I never thought as a little girl … ‘Yeah, when I grow up, I’m gonna marry someone who throws balls! Yeah!’ But he’s really just so good at it.”
The fact that their relationship started during the COVID-19 pandemic likely had something to do with it.
In June 2021, Shailene said that she and Aaron were “meant to be together.” During an interview with Shape, she said she and Aaron learned a lot about each other in a short time because they started dating during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I have the perspective that I would have met Aaron in any context, any space in time, because I feel we were meant to be together,” she told the publication.
“Starting a relationship where you immediately move in with someone — because it’s a pandemic and you can’t just get on a plane and go back and forth on weekends — taught us a lot about each other very quickly,” she continued. “We jumped in headfirst and got some of the sticky bits out of the way early.”
In February 2022, sources reported that their relationship was over — and Aaron thanked Shailene for her 'unconditional love.'
Around the same time Shailene and Aaron broke up, the NFL player thanked Shailene in an Instagram post about gratitude. “@shailenewoodley, thanks for letting me chase after you the first couple months after we met, and finally letting me catch up to you and be a part of your life,” he wrote at the time, per People. “Thanks for always having my back, for the incredible kindness you show me and everyone you meet, and for showing me what unconditional love looks like. I love you and am grateful for you.”
