Shailene Woodley Admits a 'Broken Heart' Made Her 'Uninterested' in People Who Aren't Honest: 'I Fell in Love Over and Over With Unavailability'

Shailene Woodley doesn't have time for inauthenticity.

The Big Little Lies alum, 32, has been through a lot in her love life and career, but the lessons she's taken away from it all have only made her a stronger person.

"I’m very uninterested in the performance of people at this moment in life. I’m uninterested in the external value that we put on everything," Woodley explained in a recent interview. "I find the performance of being something else in order to receive love or acceptance or work from others to be the ultimate form of soul death."

Part of gaining this knowledge has been the trials and tribulations she's experienced when it comes to romance — especially after the The Fault in Our Stars actress split from former fiancé, Aaron Rodgers, in 2022.

When pressured further about how she got to the place where she's only concerned with totally honest people, Woodley added, "Just a broken heart. A broken heart that healed and broke again. 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."

"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."

After years in the industry, the Divergent star has also adapted to being completely herself despite the pressure of the spotlight. "For better or for worse, I’ve just been who I am. I get called weird a lot. It’s humorous because I actually think I'm very normal and boring. I’m drawn to the simple things in life, like a flower on the street or a smile from anyone. So, I’ve never really had to figure out how to navigate it because I just always did me," Woodley noted.

Although she's stayed true to herself, the process for the former teen actress went through a lot to get there. "The few years in my 20s when I didn’t do me, I look back like, 'Jesus Christ, I look insane. I look like a clown.' I have a massive amount of makeup on. [I was trying] to work with different stylists over the years who put me in clothes that I just didn’t relate to at all," she added.

Bustle conducted the interview with Woodley.