OMG! Aaron Rodgers just dropped a huge bombshell!
In a new interview with Not Just Football with Cam Heyward, the Steelers quarterback is finally detailing his side of the relationship with Shailene Woodley. And holy smokes, guys, it is not what we expected!
We’d heard from Shailene before, who previously alluded to their relationship being toxic and their ultimate breakup feeling like the “darkest, hardest” time of her life.
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But now the NFL superstar is opening up about his POV, and according to him, he wasn’t the only one breaking hearts in that doomed engagement:
“I proposed to Shailene and she said yes. Now, she maybe felt like she was forced to make a decision. She could have said no. A couple days after that, she tells me, ‘Before we get married, I gotta go f**k this guy.'”
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on… WHAT?!
Aaron, you’re telling us Shailene had her own Allie Hamilton moment from The Notebook??
If that’s true, it doesn’t sound like things were super fulfilling for her with Aaron. At least she was upfront and honest about it, but of course that’s gonna do some damage. Aaron continued:
“Because her story is that I ruined her life and gave her crazy depression because I left her. But in actuality, she told me that and then she took off the ring by March. I proposed in December and we had a couple of times where we tried to get reunited and nothing ever happened. There wasn’t even a relationship in 2022 to break off. She literally told me, ‘I don’t want to be with you’ after we tried some reconciliation in 2021. There’s just a lot of narrative out there that isn’t true.”
To be fair, two things can be true at once. It must have been extremely confusing and heartbreaking for Aaron to hear that after proposing to her — the ultimate grand gesture of commitment, of “I choose you.”
Whatever problems they had before this, Aaron proposing meant he was in it for the long haul with Shailene. And, still, we have to wonder why she was even in that headspace to begin with. Had she felt so much alleged toxicity before that she needed to try something else out before knowing for certain she wanted to marry him? Whatever the case was, Aaron is still trying to figure it out, asking:
“Shai, you left me, you took the ring off. What are we talking about regarding me ruining your life?”
Hmmm. We can see why he’d be so shocked to hear that after she was the one ultimately decided to leave, per his account. But for her to choose that path, she had to have her own reasons.
Relationships are often layered. Shailene sincerely felt the way she did for whatever reasons she had. When engagements end, it’s so rarely because one person was 100% at fault. Sometimes things just break down after a lot of effort from both sides, and that in and of itself can be depressing enough on its own!
But one thing is clear: Aaron does not appreciate getting any sort of bad guy label when it comes to relationships. Talking about his time with Danica Patrick — who straight up accused Aaron of being “emotionally abusive” in 2025 — Aaron’s teeth start showing:
“No one cares what they have to say until they say my name. I dated two women who nobody gives a f**k about unless they drop my name, and they like to say their version of the history of what actually happened.”
Umm… hold on there. Is it really necessary to say “who nobody gives a f**k about”? We mean, if he’s referring to Shailene as one of the women here, she’s a TV star and a movie star. Her interviews that have nothing to do with Aaron always perform well, so people do care what she has to say even when it’s not about Aaron. Danica is a star in her own right too as a professional racing driver who’s competed in IndyCar Series AND the NASCAR Cup Series! Still, he says:
“The height of their fame was when they were with me.”
Ouch.
It’s clear Aaron, who says he’s a “lightning rod” for clicks with the power of the “silent majority” behind him, is still really upset about his exes publicly sharing their stories, saying:
“So I’m this monster of a partner [in their accounts] and it’s just f**king horses**t. Number one: Why are you still talking about me? It’s been years. I dated Danica. She had just retired. She was depressed and not fun to be around. But I didn’t leave her because I was trying to be there and be a good partner. Then it was going a certain direction obviously. There was no intimacy; there was nothing. And I’m buying a house in Malibu, and she goes, ‘well do you want to buy it together?’ And I said no. And she said, ‘You know what that means then?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that’s the way things are going.’ She said, ‘Well, let’s get counseling.’ Then we got counseling. Then COVID hits and we’re stuck together. She tells a story that she was so blindsided and getting left by you, and that he leaves a trail of blood around him. And I’m like, what are you talking about? That’s not what happened.”
Whew! No wonder everyone’s calling this a “scathing” interview!
“These narratives by my exes are not rooted in truth at all. One, stop talking about me [years later]. You’re not relevant. Move on with your life. Live your life. Two, you’re lying about what actually happened. I was actually a good partner. But yeah, I didn’t want to buy a house with you. I don’t wish you any harm, unless you’re throwing spells and shade my way. And Shai, you left me, you took the ring off. What are we talking about regarding me ruining your life? Just stop with the narrative. Move on with your life. Don’t mention me.”
But there are two things Aaron will admit to when it comes to being an imperfect partner during that time in his life. He owns up to being “emotionally unavailable”, and he also confesses to knowing he really wanted to be with the woman who is now his wife after having met her in 2017. He says life’s circumstances kept them apart before they could give anything a real shot, so in the meantime he went about his life and his own relationships, too.
“But in 2017 I met my [now] wife, and at the time she was leaving the States and going back to Europe. And my biggest regret is not begging her to stay or just like proposing right there. Because that sent me into a tailspin of like… what can I be accused of as a partner in a relationship? I was emotionally unable for those 7, 8 years. Because I [had already] met the person who changed my life. And after that, I just poured everything I had into football. And I think I got a lot out of that, for sure, but I knew I was supposed to be with this one person, and I couldn’t. We were separated by an ocean for a lot of it. Then, she got engaged, and I got engaged, and luckily for me, we came back together.”
Hm. Maybe that’s why Shailene knew he wasn’t the one? And maybe that’s why Danica felt like something was wrong? Because, from what he says in this interview, his underlying truth was that his heart was meant for the woman who would ultimately become his wife — and he knew that deep down even when he was dating other people.
What do YOU think? How would you feel in Aaron’s shoes? In Shailene’s? In Danica’s??
CLICK HERE to watch the full episode, and let us know your thoughts in the comments (below)!
[Image via YouTube/Jimmy Fallon/Jimmy Kimmel/Not Just Football With Cam Heyward.]
