After nearly three years together, actress Florence Pugh confirmed her split from actor Zach Braff in a new interview. The Don’t Worry Darling star explained that they wanted to keep the breakup as private as possible for as long as possible.
“We’ve been trying to do this separation without the world knowing, because it’s been a relationship that everybody has an opinion on,” Florence Pugh told Harper’s BAZAAR. “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 also stressed the importance of keeping her private life, well, private, despite being in the public eye. “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,” she said. “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.”
Early on in their relationship, the actress received criticism and bullying on social due to their 21-year age difference (Pugh is 26, Braff is 47). In 2020, she addressed the social media comments she received after posting a photo for Braff’s birthday. In a candid video shared on Instagram, she said commenters were “hurling abuse and being horrid — basically bullying someone.”
“I will not allow that behavior on my page. I’m not about that. It makes me upset,” Pugh said in the video. “I’m 24 years old. I have been working since I was 17. I have been earning money since I was 17. I became an adult when I was 18. I am 24 years old. I do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love and I would never in my life tell anyone who they can and cannot love. It’s not your place.”
She concluded the clip by saying, “The abuse that you throw at him is abuse that you are throwing at me, and I don’t want those followers. I do not want to have to be protecting my comments every time I post a picture of him. I really hope that I can continue this relationship with a lot of you.”
Months later, Braff spoke about their relationship for the first time in November 2020 calling Pugh’s response in the video “intelligent and articulate.”
Despite their breakup, Pugh told Harper’s Bazaar she still considers working with Braff one of her favorite projects. Braff wrote, directed and produced the upcoming film A Good Person, starring Pugh. “The movie that we made together genuinely was probably one of my most favorite experiences,” Pugh said. “It felt like a very natural and easy thing to do.”
