Shailene Woodley Defends Sharing Melania Trump's Statement After Ex-Prez Donald Was Shot at Pennsylvania Rally: 'I Only Posted the First Page'

Shailene Woodley is defending herself months after she posted Melania Trump's statement about her husband, Donald Trump, being shot at a rally earlier this summer.

"Oh my God. Literally, I read it and I was like, 'This is so beautiful.' I was in circles of people that I deeply respect…and many of them were saying, 'He missed! F------- assassin missed! Maybe it was a setup. Maybe it was a conspiracy.' I was going, 'Have we forgotten that two human lives were taken?' Two people died…I could not understand how people were speaking about something with such passion for death," the actress, 32, said in a new interview of why she shared the former first lady's statement.

"I only posted the first page of it, because the second page was more political. The first page was very much like, 'Look, underneath the political mask is a man, a grandpa, who comes home to his children, his grandchildren, and plays music. The man underneath that mask is my husband,'" she continued of the incident in which Donald was shot in the ear while two other people died. "I posted that letter because I thought it was a beautiful message of human compassion, and then I forgot about it because I have a life and I don’t live for what social media says. Then a week later, I got a text from a friend that said, 'Are you OK?' I Googled my name, because I’m like, 'Oh f---, what did I say?' And of course, there were all these news articles about Melania Trump, and I was like, 'Oh my God, that is now this? Hundreds of articles because I posted about a woman saying she’s grateful her husband is alive? Really?'"

As OK! previously reported, the Divergent alum was under fire for posting about the situation, as many then thought she might be voting for Donald, 78, in the upcoming election.

"How tf you going to star in a dystopian film and then still end up being a MAGA?" one person wrote, referencing the 2014 film Divergent.

"We don't know what that means...girl probably just posted it just to post it just like you guys are liking and retweeting this to your feed so there," a third said while supporting Shailene.

"Republican Queen," a third person added.

Now, Shailene feels like she's been taught an important lesson.

"It’s sad to me that the minute we say one thing, we are immediately isolated from a large portion of our brothers and sisters in this country. My beliefs are pretty well-known by the things that I have done publicly in the quote-unquote activist world. But until the noise is feeding what I want to feed — which is a world that feels safe and soft and truly inclusive — that [is something to work out] with my people behind closed doors," she said.

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Bustle spoke to Shailene.