Shailene Woodley has spoken out for the first time since she went viral for sharing a statement from former first lady Melania Trump about the assassination attempt on her husband, Donald Trump.
The Big Little Lies actress said she shared Melania’s statement because it seemed like a “beautiful message of human compassion,” but could not believe the backlash she received for it.
A sniper shot at Trump while he was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, grazing the former president’s ear. One person was killed at the rally and a further two injured.
Main: Shailene Woodley attends “Three Women” New York City premiere on September 9, 2024; inset left: Melania Trump smiles on stage on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The actress spoke out about sharing the former first lady’s statement after the assassination attempt on her husband.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images, Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images
Melania reacted to the incident with a two-page statement calling for unity because “we are all humans, and fundamentally, instinctively, we want to help one another,” because “love, compassion, kindness and empathy are necessities.”
Woodley then shared the statement to her Instagram stories without comment and quickly became a hot topic of conversations on social media for her choice.
Now, Woodley has opened up for the first time about why she decided to post it and how she reacted to the backlash.
Woodley said in an interview with Bustle magazine: “Oh my God. Literally, I read it and I was like, ‘This is so beautiful.’ I was in circles of people that I deeply respect—friends, colleagues, progressive, very intelligent thinkers, shakers and movers—and many of them were saying, ‘He missed! F****** assassin missed! Maybe it was a setup. Maybe it was a conspiracy.'”
Woodley then wondered to herself about the reaction because a person died, which she said was sad and devastating.
“I could not understand how people were speaking about something with such passion for death,” she added.
“I only posted the first page of it, because the second page was more political. The first page was very much like, ‘Look, underneath the political mask is a man, a grandpa, who comes home to his children, his grandchildren, and plays music. The man underneath that mask is my husband.'”
The Divergent actress said that, after she posted the statement, she “forgot about it because I have a life and I don’t live for what social media says.”
However, after about a week, her friends started texting her to check in on her, and that’s when she realized the frenzy her post had caused.
“There were all these news articles about Melania Trump, and I was like, ‘oh my God, that is now this? Hundreds of articles because I posted about a woman saying she’s grateful her husband is alive? Really?'” Woodley said.
“It made me shake my head. If [who I am] is not coming through in the way that I’m intending, I’m not going to participate on social media. I participate in my own ways now that maybe are less public because I want to add to the right noise. I don’t want to add to unnecessary noise.”
Woodley continued in the article to say her “beliefs are pretty well-known” through her activism on certain issues, especially the environment.
She publicly endorsed and campaigned for Bernie Sanders‘ presidential nomination run in 2016 and in the same year was arrested for protesting the proposed construction of a crude oil pipeline in North Dakota.
