Florence Pugh Defends Her Love for Ex-Boyfriend Zach Braff: ‘People Don't Care'

Florence Pugh has no regrets about defending her three-year romance with Zach Braff, despite facing intense public scrutiny.

“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 want a reality show,” Pugh said during the Monday, November 10, episode of “The Louis Theroux Podcast.”

The actress, who dated Braff from 2019 to 2022, addressed the 21-year age gap that often drew criticism.

“It doesn’t really matter how much you say you love someone or how much they make you happy,” she explained. “If they don’t like them and it doesn’t fit that image that they want of you, they don’t care. And I think that hurt me.”

Pugh stood firm in her relationship, despite the backlash.

“Yes. And I stood up for it, and I stood up for him and I stood up for me just being allowed to do whatever the f--- I wanted to do, and that kind of did actually change a few people’s minds,” she shared. “And I had a few people in the public eye reach out to me and say I didn’t think of it like that, and thank you for saying that.”

She mentioned that her rising fame may have influenced how people perceived her personal life.

“And also since then I’ve got bigger, I’ve become a different star. People will probably want to know a little bit more,” Pugh noted. “I think you have to just ask yourself, the more you expose, the more you’re allowing people to comment on it. And if they don’t know, they can’t really comment on it.”

Pugh expressed unwavering support for her loved ones, saying she will “always defend people that I love.”

“I will always stand up for them,” she asserted. “I’ll always make sure that if there needs to be a reset and there needs to be 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.”

The actress emphasized the role of social media in amplifying negativity around her relationship.

“It got to the point where it was just really horrible to see someone that you are with receiving that,” she added, reflecting on the “insane amount of abuse being hurled” at their romance due to the age difference.

Pugh and Braff first sparked dating rumors in April 2019 while holding hands in New York City.

The same month, she starred in Braff’s short film In the Time It Takes to Get There.

Pugh celebrated Braff’s 45th birthday on social media April 6, 2020, and shortly after found herself defending their relationship in response to negative comments.

“I’ve been wrestling with the idea for the past few days about whether I should do this video and then finally last night I thought, for my own peace of mind, I should,” the Midsommar actress said in a video addressing the backlash. “I will not allow [bullying] on my page. I’m not about that. It makes me upset. It makes me sad during this time — when we really all need to be together, we need to be supporting one another, we need to be loving one another.”

Pugh concluded with a powerful reminder: “I’m 24 years old. I have been working since I was 17 years old. I have been earning money since I was 17 years old. I became an adult when I was 18 years old, and I started paying taxes when I was 18 years old. I do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love, and I would never in my life ever, ever tell someone who they can and cannot love. It is not your place. And really it has nothing to do with you … The abuse that you throw at him is abuse that you throw at me.”