It’s been more than four years since the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and actress Shailene Woodley ended their engagement after dating for a few years. Rodgers was still with the Green Bay Packers at the time. Now, the 42-year-old quarterback has offered his first detailed account of the private breakdown of his engagement to Woodley.

In a conversation on the Not Just Football With Cam Heyward podcast, Rodgers disrupted the public narrative surrounding their 2022 split and made new allegations about what happened after he proposed.

“I date Shailene, and I propose, and she says yes. Now, she maybe felt like she was forced to make a decision. She could have said no,” said Rodgers on the podcast. “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 — 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 is just not true.”

Rodgers and Woodley first hit it off in 2020, with their romance reportedly developing during the COVID-19 pandemic. They kept things private initially, but their relationship quickly became serious. They moved in together during the pandemic, with Woodley later saying they “jumped in headfirst” and learned a lot about each other quickly.

After that, the two secretly got engaged. Rodgers revealed during his 2021 NFL MVP acceptance speech that he was engaged, while Woodley confirmed their engagement later that month on The Tonight Show. She said they had already been engaged for some time before making the news public.

Throughout 2021, Rodgers and Woodley continued their relationship despite demanding careers and periods spent apart. They vacationed together in Hawaii and publicly appeared supportive of one another, while Woodley said they were not rushing their wedding.

By early 2022, however, reports emerged that they had called off their engagement, ending a relationship that had lasted roughly two years.

In 2024, Woodley shared the details about her relationship with Rodgers, admitting:

“I had a really awful, traumatic thing happen in early 2022. I felt like I lost my soul, my self, my happiness, my joy. I really understood depression and anxiety and, like, complete soul detachment.”

At the same time, she also admitted that she chose to stay in a “toxic situation” at the time because “empathy kind of kept me in this loop of feeling everything for everyone.”

Rodgers, meanwhile, also addressed his relationship with her ex-girlfriend, Danica Patrick, during his appearance on Heyward’s podcast.

“The height of their fame was when they were with me,” the quarterback said. “They get clicks when they say my name, just like the idiots on TV, because I am a lightning rod, because people actually give a s–t, and there is a silent majority that’s like, ‘I like this guy, he stands for something.’ There’s a group of people that are like, ‘I like the old guy.’ … Stop talking about me; It’s been years…you’re not relevant, move on with your life.

“Also, two, you’re lying about what actually happened. I was actually a good partner…I don’t wish you any harm…and Shai, you left me; you took the ring off. What are we talking about regarding me ruining your life?”

That said, Rodgers now found a quieter chapter with his wife, Brittani, whom he married in 2025 after reconnecting following their initial relationship in 2017. Rodgers has credited Brittani with helping him reconnect with his estranged family, while the couple has largely kept their relationship out of the spotlight.

Now, as the 42-year-old quarterback prepares for his final NFL season, he has said that he and Brittani are looking forward to starting a family and living a more private life after football.