Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers took fans by surprise earlier this month when he noted as he accepted the MVP award during the annual NFL honors that he “got engaged.”
Shortly after that, media outlets began reporting that his fiancée is actress Shailene Woodley, surprising Hollywood observers as well, who were unaware that the pair were even a couple.
Speaking to host Jimmy Fallon on NBC’s Tonight Show, Woodley confirmed the engagement and pointed out it’s not new.
“Yes, we are engaged, we are engaged,” she said. “But for us it’s not new news, you know, so it’s kind of funny. Everybody right now is freaking out over it but we’re like, ‘Yeah, we’ve been engaged for a while.'” The actress, who can currently be seen in the film The Mauritanian, opened up about their relationship and how despite Rodgers being an NFL star, she doesn’t “know him as a football guy.”
“I don’t know him as a football guy,” Woodley said, adding that she’d never seen a football game before meeting Rodgers. “I know him as like the nerd who wants to host Jeopardy! That’s the dude I know. He just happens to also be very good at sports.”
She added that her friends try to get her to watch his highlights on YouTube. While she knew that he played football for a living when they met, she didn’t know much about his career, she said, and she still hasn’t been to a football game due to the pandemic.
“I still have never been to a football game because we met during this wacky, wacky time and all the stadiums were closed that he was playing in. So, I have yet to go to a football game,” she said.
While she’s supportive of Rodgers and called him a “wonderful, incredible human being,” Woodley admitted she’s still surprised she ended up with someone in his profession.
“I never thought I’d be engaged to somebody who threw balls for a living,” she said. “Like I never thought as a little girl, I was like, ‘Yeah, when I grow up, I’m going to marry someone who throws balls, yeah!’ But he’s really just so good at it.”
Woodley also joked that her dog was quickly taken with Rodgers. “When I first met him … my dog pulled me aside and was like, ‘If you don’t date this dude, I will disown you as my mother because the three feet I run with you when you throw a ball is nothing compared to the marathon I’m able to run with him.'”
