Aaron Rodgers has spent years saying relatively little about what ended his engagement to Shailene Woodley. He has now offered a much more explicit version of events, one that does not line up neatly with the public timeline people saw at the time.
During the Sept. 10 installment of Not Just Football with Cam Heyward, Rodgers said he proposed to Woodley in December 2020 and she accepted. He then claimed that only days later, she told him that before they married, she wanted to have sex with another man.
Rodgers also said Woodley had taken off her engagement ring by March 2021 and that later attempts to repair the relationship went nowhere.
Their engagement did not become public until February 2021, while reports that they had split did not emerge until February 2022.
Rodgers Says the Engagement Changed Within Days
Rodgers raised Woodley while discussing what he believes are inaccurate public narratives surrounding several of his past relationships.
“I date Shailene, I propose and she says yes,” Rodgers recalled. He said Woodley may have felt pressured to make a decision but argued that she could have declined the proposal.
According to Rodgers, the situation changed almost immediately. He claimed that “a couple of days” later, Woodley told him, “Before we get married, I got to go f— this guy.”
The Public Record After March 2021 Is More Complicated
Rodgers first announced that he was engaged while accepting the NFL MVP award on Feb. 6, 2021, without naming his fiancée. Woodley then confirmed their engagement on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon later that month and said the news was already old to them because they had “been engaged for a while.” She also displayed the engagement ring during that interview.
Woodley was still visibly wearing the ring in an April 5 Instagram video promoting Rodgers’ stint as guest host of Jeopardy!. The pair also appeared together during an Instagram Live and were photographed holding hands and embracing at Disney World during the same period.
Their public relationship continued after that. They attended the Kentucky Derby with friends in May, and Woodley told Shape in an interview published that summer that she believed she and Rodgers were “meant to be together.”
Rodgers Says There Was No Relationship Left to End in 2022
When breakup reports emerged in February 2022, the news was widely treated as the end of an active relationship. Rodgers now says that framing was inaccurate.
He said he and Woodley had tried to reunite but that the efforts did not lead anywhere. “There wasn’t even a relationship in ’22 to break off,” Rodgers said, adding that Woodley had told him she did not want to be with him.
Less than a week after the February 2022 breakup reports, Rodgers posted an affectionate Instagram message thanking Woodley for showing him “what unconditional love looks like” and saying he loved and appreciated her.
The two were subsequently seen having breakfast together in Los Angeles, attended a March wedding together and were photographed arriving in Florida on the same private plane. Later that month, PEOPLE reported that they were affectionate during a winery outing while reconciliation speculation continued. By April 2022, however, reports said the attempted reconciliation had ended and the engagement was over for good.
Woodley Never Publicly Said Rodgers ‘Ruined Her Life’
He claimed that “her story” was that he had ruined her life and caused severe depression by leaving her. In a 2024 Outside interview, Woodley became emotional when Rodgers came up. “I haven’t shared much about my relationship with Aaron because it always makes me cry,” she said. “It was not right. But it was beautiful.”
In the same interview, Woodley described going through what she called a “really awful, traumatic thing” in early 2022 and said she felt as though she had lost her sense of self, happiness and joy. She did not specifically identify Rodgers as the cause of that event or say that he alone caused the depression and anxiety she experienced during that period.
Months earlier, Woodley had also spoken to Bustle about a “broken heart that healed and broke again” and said she had learned to walk away from relationships without needing every unanswered question resolved.