Shailene Woodley is kinda opening up about an illness she had early in her career.
“I haven’t spoken much about this yet publicly, and I will one day, but I was very, very sick in my early 20s,” Shailene explained. “While I was doing the ‘Divergent’ movies and working hard, I also was struggling with a deeply personal, very scary physical situation.” She was forced to turn down a lot of opportunities. “Those jobs ended up going to peers of mine who I love. They went on to a lot of success, but there was a mix of people saying, ‘You shouldn’t have let that go!’ or ‘You shouldn’t have been sick!’”
Fortunately, Shailene is on the other side of the mysterious ailment. Now her focus is mental health. Even though it’s a slow process, she’s glad to have gone through it. “I feel very grounded and rooted in who I am and very clear about everything in my life, whether it’s my career or my relationships or my own internal worth,” she noted. “I feel very grateful to have walked that line of fire, because now I know what I don’t want to ever go back to.”
Source: New York Times
