Florence Pugh has said she finds it “bizarre” that fans share their objections to her relationship with Zach Braff and added “people have no right to educate me on my private life”.
The 24-year-old Little Women star has kept her relationship with the Scrubs actor, 45, largely out of the public eye but has been shocked by some of the responses she has received.
When she shared a rare photo of Braff on his birthday earlier this month, she disabled the public comments on the Instagram post.
She told Elle UK: “I have the right to hang out and be with and go out with anyone I want to.
“I’ve always found this part of what people do really bizarre. I’m an actor because I like acting and I don’t mind people watching my stuff, but people have no right to educate me on my private life.
“I know that part of being in the spotlight is that people might invade your privacy and have opinions on it, but it’s bizarre that normal folk are allowed to display such hate and opinions on a part of my life that I’m not putting out there.
“It’s a strange side of fame that you’re allowed to be torn apart by thousands of people even though you didn’t put that piece of you out there.
“My point to all this is that isn’t it odd that a stranger can totally tear apart someone’s relationship and it’s allowed?”
Pugh has been in lockdown with Braff in Los Angeles amid the coronavirus pandemic and said she has realised some things about herself during that time.
She said: “I was so surprised by how unkind I am to myself! Living in lockdown I found there’s no point or energy in being annoyed at yourself for not reading that book, writing that song or working out that day.
“I’m teaching myself to find joy as much as I can and ease in these open long days.
“Cooking has been my saviour! When the world lockdown started and it obviously got serious very quickly, I found myself desperate to chop. Feed. Eat. Repeat!”
Pugh also revealed that food was recently a source of embarrassment when she attended the Oscars earlier this year, where she was nominated for Little Women.
She said: “At one point, everyone stood up to applaud Martin Scorsese. I’d just got out a bag of M&Ms.
“As we all got up, a camera popped right in my face and I was waving this bag of M&Ms about. So I just had to drop it… on the floor.
“I thought ‘I can’t be the girl who’s eating M&Ms while giving Martin a standing ovation’.”
– The June issue of Elle UK is on sale from May 7.
