Marriage proposals are often exciting times for couples as they look ahead to what is hopefully a long future together. For Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and actress Shailene Woodley, it appears those feelings did not last long.
In an interview released Thursday on the “Not Just Football” podcast, Rodgers told Steelers teammate Cam Heyward that Woodley made a surprising statement just days after he proposed to her in December 2020.
“I proposed to Shailene and she said yes,” Rodgers said about his ex-fiancée. “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,’ and I’m like — 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 (2021) — I proposed in December (2020) — and we had a couple of times where we tried to get reunited and nothing ever happened,” Rodgers added. “There wasn’t even a relationship in 2022 to break off.”
Despite this apparent awkward statement from Woodley that the public was unaware of until Thursday, Rodgers still surprised those watching when he announced that he was engaged to her during the NFL Honors broadcast in February 2021; Rodgers made the comments after being revealed as the winner of his third NFL MVP award.
Woodley later showed off her engagement ring in a February 2021 appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
The following month in March 2021, Rodgers says, Woodley removed her ring. The pair attempted to reconcile throughout 2021, and the couple was thought to be together until March of 2022.
In his podcast interview Thursday, though, Rodgers disputed that it was still even a relationship in his mind by 2022.
“She literally told me, ‘I don’t want to be with you,’ after we tried some reconciliation in 2021. Rodgers said. “There’s just a lot of narrative out there that isn’t true. … Shai, you left me, you took the ring off. What are we talking about regarding me ruining your life?”
Woodley, who won her first Emmy in 2026 for her role on the series “Paradise,” previously described her relationship with Rodgers as a “toxic situation” in a 2024 interview, according to the New York Post. She did not reference the quarterback by name.
“I had a really awful, traumatic thing happen in early 2022,” Woodley said, without getting into specific detail about her trauma. “I felt like I lost my soul, my self, my happiness, my joy. I really understood depression and anxiety and, like, complete soul detachment.”
Rodgers married his current wife, Brittani, in 2025. The quarterback has purposely kept her identity hidden from the public, although they have known each other since 2017 and began dating in 2024, according to People Magazine.
Rodgers begins his 22nd NFL season on Sunday, when the Steelers host the Atlanta Falcons. The veteran quarterback announced in May that the upcoming season will be his final time playing as a professional.
“There was some doubt for sure,” Rodgers said about returning for another season with Pittsburgh. “But I had good conversations with [Steelers coach Mike McCarthy] going back to when he was hired.”
“It was nice to come back. I mean, it felt different than last year because I knew some of the guys and some of the people that work here and stuff, so it felt good coming in,” he said.
