Actress Shailene Woodley has spoken out in defense of her decision to share a letter from former First Lady Melania Trump following an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. In an interview with Bustle, Woodley explained that she felt compelled to post the letter due to its message of compassion, despite the polarized response that followed.
Woodley explained that she shared the letter after many of her friends reacted in a way she found disheartening “I was in circles of people that I deeply respect — friends, colleagues, progressive, very intelligent thinkers — and many of them were saying, ‘He missed! Maybe it was a setup. Maybe it was a conspiracy.'”
Woodley described her frustration at how some people seemed to overlook the loss of two lives in the attack, which motivated her to share the letter. “Two people died. That is sad. That is devastating,” she said, emphasizing the importance of recognizing the human element in such tragedies.
Woodley only shared the first page of the letter, which she said focused on the humanity of Trump as a husband and grandfather, while omitting the second, more politically charged, portion. “I posted that letter because I thought it was a beautiful message of human compassion.”
However, the actress soon faced a wave of criticism for sharing the message. She recalled learning about the backlash a week later when she was alerted by a friend, sparking her decision to look herself up online. To her surprise, the situation had snowballed into a major news story, with numerous articles about her decision to post the letter. “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?'”
Despite the backlash, Woodley expressed that the controversy has led her to limit her public presence on social media, choosing instead to engage with activism and nonprofit work in more private ways. “If [who I am] is not coming through in the way that I’m intending, I’m not going to participate on social media,” she said, adding that she prefers to contribute to causes in ways that align with her values.
Woodley, best known for starring in “Big Little Lies”, “The Secret Life of the American Teenager”, and the “Divergent” film series, supported Senator Bernie Sanders’ president campaign in 2016 and has been very outspoken about her environmentalist beliefs.
