News feed
In the same interview wherein she addressed the media frenzy surrounding her new project Don’t Worry, Darling with Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde, Florence Pugh shared some unexpected personal news: she and her longtime boyfriend, Scrubs actor Zach Braff, quietly broke up earlier this year.
The British actress said that due to the public’s interest in the pair’s three-year relationship – and the unsolicited commentary that came alongside their 21-year age gap – Pugh and Braff decided to keep their split out of the spotlight. “We’ve been trying to do this separation without the world knowing, because it’s been a relationship that everybody has an opinion on,” Pugh told Harper’s BAZAAR USA. “We just felt something like this would really do us the benefit of not having millions of people telling us how happy they are that we’re not together. So we’ve done that.”
She added, “I automatically get a lumpy throat when I talk about it.”
Pugh added she hates the celebrity aspect of her job, saying, “Whenever I feel like that line has been crossed in my life, whether it’s paparazzi taking private moments or moments that aren’t even real, or gossip channels that encourage members of the public to share private moments of famous people walking down the street, I think it’s incredibly wrong.”
“I don’t think that people, just because they have this job, that every aspect of their life should be watched and written about. We haven’t signed up for a reality TV show,” she continued.
Prior to going their separate ways, Pugh and Braff were making a movie, A Good Person, together, which she says was a positive time in their lives. “The movie that we made together genuinely was probably one of my most favourite experiences,” she said. “It felt like a very natural and easy thing to do.” Braff reportedly wrote the script while thinking of Pugh for the role.
Pugh has spoken publicly about Braff multiple times over the years, from wishing him a happy birthday and praising him on her social media to shutting down trolls. Most memorably, when she was first becoming a household name, in April 2020, she slammed those acting like she was too young to be in a relationship with him. “I am 24 years old,” she said then in an Instagram video. “I do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love. And I would never in my life ever, ever tell anyone who they can and cannot love. It is not your place. And really, it has nothing to do with you. So if those rules are something that you do not like, then please unfollow me because the abuse that you throw at him is abuse that you’re throwing at me.”
