Now, it’s worth noting here that, during their relationship, Shailene and Aaron were fairly private about their relationship. I mean, they were friggin’ engaged at one point, and yet they weren’t really ever photographed together publicly all that much.
Aaron was very public about his feelings post-breakup, going so far as to issue a public thanks and an apology to her — but Shailene has mostly remained silent on the matter. She made some oblique comments about dating someone “famous” the following year, but that was about it.
So it comes as a bit of a surprise that, in a recent interview with Outside, she directly addressed the breakup — as well as why she doesn’t really like talking about the breakup directly.
“I haven’t shared much about my relationship with Aaron because it always makes me cry,” she told the publication.
“It was not right,” she added, possibly regarding the relationship as a whole — or the breakup specifically. “But it was beautiful.”
In another portion of the profile, Shailene referenced an “awful, traumatic thing” she experienced in early 2022 — again, around the same time she broke up with Aaron. Is it the breakup specifically she’s referring to? Maybe so, maybe not.
“I felt like I lost my soul, my self, my happiness, my joy,” she recalled. “I really understood depression and anxiety and, like, complete soul detachment.”
“I knew I was depressed when I looked at a tree and felt nothing. That was the lowest low of my life.”
Shailene also said that her friend, stylist Kris Zero, eventually helped her through the period of depression, which lasted around six months. “Sometimes I was so angry at her,” she recalled. “But then we’d go surf, and for ten minutes that day I thought life could be OK again.”
“Then the depression would come back and she’d go, ‘We’re volunteering at the horse ranch!’ And we’d find a random fucking horse ranch, and we’d clean up horse shit. We’d clean hooves and brush the horses, and for 20 minutes that day I thought life could be OK again.”
“And then the depression came back and she’d wake me up the next morning and go, ‘Let’s go on a hike and bring trash bags and clean up trash!’”
Well, it’s a good thing she had a good friend to get her through that period of time. And her experience is also a reminder that, if you’re not feeling right, it’s always worth talking to someone you trust about it, too.
Read the entire profile here.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-800-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.