Controversial or Consensual: Is Florence Pugh's View on Age Gap Dating Harmful?
The actor gets candid in her recent interview.
On the cover of Vogue’s latest issue, Florence Pugh recounted her dating life and controversial age gap relationship with actor Zach Braff, 21 years her senior.
Pugh, 27, and Graff’s relationship hit the internet in 2019 after Graff tweeted his admiration for her acting. Shortly thereafter, the two made their online affinity and IRL love and sealed it with a kiss in New York City, confirming their relationship. However, the public quickly expressed its disdain and confusion at how a 21-year age gap could be consensual and not predatory. The pair eventually broke up in 2022 and had to quitely end the relationship to avoid “opinions,” as Pugh revealed to Harper’s Bazaar. We’ve been trying to do this separation without the world knowing because it’s been a relationship that everybody has an opinion on,” said Pugh. “We just felt something like this would really do us the benefit of not having millions of people telling us how happy they are that we’re not together. So we’ve done that.”
In her latest interview, Pugh elaborated that the backlash was due to superficial reasons. “We weren’t in anyone’s faces. It was just that people didn’t like it,” she told Vogue. “I think young relationships in Hollywood are so easily twisted because they add to the gossip sites,” she continued. “It’s exciting to watch. And I think I was in a relationship that didn’t do any of that.”
As more age gap relationships like Bille Eilish and Jesse Rutherford‘s came about, the public has been in a debate about what makes age gap dynamics predatory versus consensual. In the case of Pugh, it appears grooming is not present as she’s a 27-year-old woman — not 20 years old like Eilish was when first dating Rutherford. In fact, age gap dating was suspected to be an even more popular dating trend for 2023, signifying that Pugh may not be the only one with this perspective.
Could Pugh’s views hold some validity? Is the age gap only controversial in the name of gossip? Or genuine concern?
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