Actress Florence Pugh has set the record straight on her heavily criticised relationship with ex Zach Braff.
Florence had been dating Zach for three years between 2019 and 2022, but their 21-year age difference overshadowed their sweet connection.
Now, the 28-year-old Don’t Worry Darling star spoke to British Vogue in an interview on Wednesday (18 September) about dating Zach, 49, and how it felt to be scrutinised.
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The pair first began going out after working on the 2019 project In The Time It Takes To Get There, which saw Florence play a ‘disenchanted social media influencer’ in the 18th century and Zach as the director.
The two went on to privately date, however online trolls were quick to dampen the flames by incessant scrutiny of their age gap, which led Florence to call them out once and for all in 2020 via Instagram after her tribute to Zach’s birthday led to unimaginably cruel comments.
She said at the time on an Instagram video: “Within about eight minutes of the photo being posted, I had about 70 people in the comments hurling abuse and being horrid, and basically bullying someone on my page.
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“I would never in my life ever, ever tell someone who they can and cannot love.
“It is not your place. And really, it has nothing to do with you. The abuse that you throw at him is abuse that you throw at me.”
She told Vogue this week: “I had to be public in the past because people were bullying me and bullying my partner."
She went on to explain how she felt when people were so cruel to her boyfriend: “Mine and Zach’s relationship was actually quite private until it was nasty, and I could see the toll that it was taking on him and us and our families.
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“And that’s when I spoke out.”
Pugh went on to say: “I think for anyone I’m with, I want to protect them. It’s not nice knowing that people are saying the worst things I’ve ever read about someone that I love. So that was necessary. I needed to talk about it. I think any relationship in this limelight is going to be stressed.”
Even though Florence stood up to the trolls, Zach never once spoke out about the hate he was receiving.
He did, however, go one to address it in an interview in 2020, explaining that he couldn’t possibly ‘follow anything as intelligent and articulate as that’ and so he remained silent.
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Even though they have since split up, the pair remain on good terms and Zach especially has praised her work post-break up.
Now, Florence has shared that she is in a new relationship, though she’s keeping it hush for now.
She said: “OK, so something that I resonate with is that I believe that if magic is real, then it’s falling in love.
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“And I am someone that loves falling in love. I love looking after people. I love caring for people. I love the feeling of someone being there. I love knowing that someone is thinking about me, and someone cares for me in the same way that I’m thinking about caring for them.”
At this moment, the actress and her mystery partner are ‘figuring out what we actually are’, and she’s ‘not allowing myself to go on a roller coaster’.
"I’m allowing myself to take time to let something evolve and let it be completely real to its core, as opposed to racing into that."
Topics: Florence Pugh, Celebrity, TV And Film, Sex and Relationships
Britt Jones