Florence Pugh has opened up about her relationship with Zach Braff - and the reason she'll never speak about her personal life again.
The actress, 29, dated American actor and filmmaker Braff, 50, from 2019 until 2022, after meeting while working together on the short film In the Time It Takes to Get There.
The pair, who had a 21-year age-gap, moved in together in Los Angeles, but found they faced intense backlash after going public with their romance.
Pugh was forced to defend their relationship after fans came at them for the age difference, and admitted in a new interview that the experience has put her off talking about her personal life again.
When asked whether she speaks about her relationships publicly by Louis Theroux during a November 10 appearance on The Louis Theroux Podcast, she responded: "Not anymore."
She explained: "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 sort of want a reality show, and so 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."
The Don't Worry Darling actress confirmed her split from Braff in 2022 and admitted that she had got sick of the "insane amount of abuse being hurled at my relationship just because there was an age gap."
Pugh added: "I’ll always defend people that I love, I will always stand up for them. If there needs to be a reset and a bit of a smack on the wrist, I will do that because it’s not fair that so much of your life gets to have jabs."
After Pugh shared a photo in celebration of Braff's birthday in 2020, she was forced to respond to people that were "bullying" her partner in the comments.
"Within about eight minutes of the photo being posted, I had about 70 percent of the comments hurling abuse and being horrid — basically bullying someone on my page," Pugh said.
"It is the first time in my entire Instagram life that I’ve had to turn off the comments on my page. I’ve never been an Instagram page that encourages that. I’ve never been an Instagram page that likes that toxic vibe."
She told Theroux that she felt she needed to "check" her followers and remind them that she and Braff were real people with feelings.
Pugh explained: "It got to the point where it was just really horrible to see someone that you are with receiving that, and it was never at me, it was only at him.
"And I think I just needed to kind of just check everyone, and so I made a video and it got a lot of love and lots of people were supportive, which was great. I do think people online need to be reminded that we’re real."
Later that year, Braff told Mr Porter: "She literally sat down, hit record on her phone and said that. I thought, 'How could I possibly follow anything as intelligent and articulate as that?' So, I chose not to."
Though the pair split in 2022, they have remained close friends and worked together on the 2023 movie A Good Person.
During promo for the film, Braff spoke highly of his ex, saying: "I quite simply think she's one of the greatest actors of her generation. She's just magnetic. You cannot take your eyes off of her."