made a rare comment about her personal life while reflecting on her past breakups — including her high-profile split from .
Woodley, 32, reflected on heartbreak while discussing her upcoming series Three Women, which was filmed as her engagement to NFL star Rodgers, 40, came to an end.
“Just a broken heart. A broken heart that healed and broke again,” the actress told Bustle in an interview published on Monday, September 9, about what helped her stop caring about performing for others.
Woodley offered insight into what ended some of her relationships, adding, “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.”
The ups and downs in her personal life has allowed Woodley to learn more about herself.
“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,” she continued. “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.”
Woodley has remained invested in love — and in motherhood.
“I give all of myself. I used to be a person who, if you crossed me and disrespected that, would continue to give and give,” she noted. “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.”
Woodley is still looking forward to some milestones, saying, “I want to be a mom. 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.”
Woodley has remained largely tight-lipped about her love life since her high-profile split from Rodgers. The former couple sparked dating rumors in July 2020 and Us Weekly subsequently confirmed their romance days before Rodgers announced that he was engaged.
“I got engaged and played some of the best football of my career,” Rodgers shared while accepting an award in February 2021. That same month, Woodley opened up about how their relationship blossomed at the beginning of the COVID pandemic.
“It’s kind of funny. Everybody right now is freaking out over [our engagement] and we’re like, ‘Yeah, we’ve been engaged for a while,’” she said during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in February 2021. “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.”
Us confirmed in February 2022 that Rodgers and Woodley called it quits. Rodgers later praised the time he got to spend with Woodley before their breakup.
“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 via Instagram at the time. “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.”
A source told Us in May 2022 that Woodley was “more upset” over the split while Rodgers seemed “ to be moving on” just fine. “Ultimately, Shailene was not happy in the relationship,” the insider noted.
