It was a relationship that raised eyebrows across the globe, and now Florence Pugh is speaking out about her polarising age-gap relationship with fellow actor Zach Braff.
The former couple met in 2019 on the set of short film In the Time it Takes to Get There, which Braff directed and Pugh starred in.
The Midsommar actress was 24, while Braff was 45 – 21 years her senior – when they first went public with their relationship in 2019.
Pugh opened up about her experiences fighting the public scrutiny that came along with the relationship on an episode of The Louis Theroux Podcast yesterday.
“With relationships and with romance in this world, it doesn’t matter how much you speak on it or how little you speak on it, people don’t care. They want a story; they want a reality show,” she reflected.
“It doesn’t really matter how much you say you love someone or how much they make you happy.
“If they don’t like them and it doesn’t fit that image that they want of you, they don’t care. And I think that hurt me.”
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Pugh went on to say online discourse had proven a major problem in the relationship, resulting in abuse being hurled at her then-partner.
Fresh off reprising her role as Yelena in Marvel film Thunderbolts*, the star said while it was a difficult process, she’ll always fight to defend romantic partners from public backlash.
In 2020, after making a birthday post on Instagram for Braff, Pugh’s comments were flooded with fans taken aback by the unlikely pair, prompting her to make a video in response.
”Within 8 minutes of posting, I had about 70% of comments hurling abuse… essentially bullying someone on my page.”
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She went on to say “the abuse that you throw at him is abuse that you throw at me.”
Pugh and Braff have since broken up, officially calling it quits in 2022. The Little Women actress cited the public scrutiny the pair faced as one of the contributing factors to the split.
You can next see her in upcoming films Dune: Messiah and Avengers: Doomsday, which are both set to release in 2026.
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