Many film fans will know Shailene Woodley from her YA hits The Fault In Our Stars and the Divergent series, while others may recognize her from Big Little Lies. But few know others about her super private dating history, much of which has been intentional.
"I fall in love with human beings based on who they are, not based on what they do or what sex they are," she told the Hollywood Reporter in 2020 of her attitude towards relationships, and in 2023 she said of her high-profile former engagement to NFL star Aaron Rodgers: "It honestly never really hit me that millions of people around the world were actually watching these things and paid attention to them."
Shailene Woodley and Nahko Bear:
Shailene, now 32, found fame at 22 in the ABC Family teen drama series The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008–2013) before going on to star alongside George Clooney in 2011's Oscar-nominated The Descendants, and 2013's The Spectacular Now.
In 2014, she met musician Nahko Bear, the frontman of indie group Nahko and Medicine For the People, and their romance went public in November of that year when they were pictured enjoying a sunset together in Hawaii.
In May 2015, Bear's sister, Nicki, took to social media to share a series of pictures that included a snap of Bear and Shailene with Nicki's friends during a trip to California.
Shailene Woodley and Ben Volavola:
In 2017 she was linked to rugby player Ben Volavola, after reportedly meeting him when she was filming Adrift in Fiji.
He played for Fiji in the Rugby World Cup, and in 2019 he told Rugbypass of their romance: "I'm blessed to have met a girl like her. Before me, she had never watched sports on TV. Since then, she has started to learn the rules of rugby. She even comes to see us at the Arena."
Sadly they split in 2020 and Shailene acknowledged it was because she was "still at an age where I wasn’t able to fully commit".
"I couldn’t be available to him in the way that I wanted to be. I didn’t fully love myself," she said.
Shailene Woodley and Aaron Rodgers:
In 2020 she met then-Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and their romance went public in 2021 when he called her his "fiancee".
"I've made decisions and changes and habits that put me in a lot better headspace and there's just a lot of things that have come together in my life over the last few months that have really been enjoyable," he said in September 2020 hinting at the early days of their romance.
His 2020/2021 season ended in January 2021 and the following month, he was awarded the league's MVP award at the NFL Honors ceremony, and called out his "fiancee" for their support.
Two weeks later Shailene confirmed the news, revealing Aaron had dropped to one knee "a while" before everyone found out.
"Everybody right now is freaking out over it and we're like, 'Yeah, we've been engaged for a while,'" she told host Jimmy Fallon.
"He’s, first of all, a wonderful, incredible human being. But I never thought I’d be engaged to someone who throws balls for a living."
"But he’s really so good at it," she said laughing. "When we met, I knew he was a football guy but I never knew what kind of a football guy he was ... I am still constantly learning because I don’t know him as the football guy. I know him as, like, the nerd who wants to host Jeopardy! That’s the guy I know. He just happens to also be very good at sports."
They split in 2022 with sources close to the pair alleging that it was "very amicable" and that it "just wasn't working".
Shailene opened up about the romance in 2023, telling Porter that filming Three Woman was "hard to film because I was going through the darkest, hardest time in my life".
"It was winter in New York, and my personal life was [expletive], so it felt like a big pain bubble for eight months."
More recently she told Bustle that she loves "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. 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."
New romance?
Shailene has been quiet about her romances in recent months but she was spotted on a date with a mystery man in August at the White Horse Tavern in New York’s West Village.