Zach Braff, 45, has been linked with Florence Pugh, 24, since December 2019—and has been criticized for dating someone who is much younger. Now, he’s breaking his silence on the relationship and their age difference.
In an interview with Mr. Porter’s, the Scrubs actor talked about how Pugh defended their relationship on social media and how impressed he was with her response.
“She literally sat down, hit record on her phone and said that,” recalled Braff. “I thought, ‘How could I possibly follow anything as intelligent and articulate as that?’ So, I chose not to.”
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The Midsommar actor wished her beau a happy birthday in April on Instagram and called him a “special person.” What she saw later shocked her, as comments criticizing their age gap took over the feed. Pugh decided she needed to address what she considered “bullying.”
“On Monday, I posted a photo in honor of Zach’s birthday and I wrote a birthday message underneath. Within about eight minutes of the photo being posted, I had about 70 percent of the comments hurling abuse and being horrid — basically bullying someone on my page,” Pugh said. “It is the first time in my entire Instagram life that I’ve had to turn off the comments on my page. I’ve never been an Instagram page that encourages that. I’ve never been an Instagram page that likes that toxic vibe.”
“It makes me upset that during this time when we need to be together, the world is aching and the world is dying, and a few of you decided to bully for no reason.”
“The abuse that you throw at him is abuse that you are throwing at me, and I don’t want those followers. I do not want to have to be protecting my comments every time I post a picture of him. I really hope that I can continue this relationship with a lot of you,” Pugh said.
Pugh also addressed the criticism further with Elle UK. She explained that “people have no right to educate me on my private life.”
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“I know that part of being in the spotlight is that people might invade your privacy and have opinions on it, but it’s bizarre that normal folk are allowed to display such hate and opinions on a part of my life that I’m not putting out there,” she added.
“It’s a strange side of fame that you’re allowed to be torn apart by thousands of people even though you didn’t put that piece of you out there. My point to all this is that isn’t it odd that a stranger can totally tear apart someone’s relationship and it’s allowed?”