Florence Pugh confirms that she and Zach Braff have broken up. The couple had been dating for three years. In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar (via Today), Pugh revealed that the couple had parted ways quietly earlier this year and had been trying to keep the separation private because it is something “that everyone has an opinion on.” Pugh and Braff had also tried to keep their relationship relatively low-profile, in general.
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“We’ve been trying to do this separation without the world knowing, because it’s just been a relationship that everybody has an opinion on,” Pugh said. “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. I automatically get a lumpy throat when I talk about it”
Pugh also commented on how the public scrutiny of her relationship with Braff was something that she felt was very invasive and that she feels people in the public eye shouldn’t have to endure their lives being treated in such a fashion.
“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.”
Pugh and Braff began dating in 2019 and soon after their relationship became public, it drew unwanted criticism due to the 21-year age gap between the pair. Pugh even addressed the situation in 2021, defending her relationship.
“It’s so weird to me to go on to someone’s page and s*** on it,” Pugh says. “That’s so not my nature – to go and bully for the sake of bullying. It’s such an odd thing that we’ve become OK with in the past ten years of social media. The thing is, people want Instagram to be a nicer place, they want to see nice things. They want to be inspired and they want to be happy. I don’t mind you not liking me, that’s absolutely fine. In which case don’t follow me.
“I think it bugs people that it’s not who they expected,” she continued. “But it’s my life and I’m not doing anything to please people or to make it a better headline or story. I want to also be a person!”
While Pugh and Braff may no longer be a couple, the pair collaborated on an upcoming movie, A Good Person, which is set to come out next year. Pugh described the project as one of her “most favorite experiences.”
“The movie that we made together genuinely was probably one of my most favorite experiences,” she said. “It felt like a very natural and easy thing to do.”
