" Literally , I read it and I was like , ' This is so beautiful . ' "
Shailene Woodleydefended sharing Melania Trump’s statement following former president Donald Trump’s shooting.
“We all want a world where respect is paramount, family is first, and love transcends. We can realize this world again. Each of us must demand to get it back,” she continued on the following page, urging people to remember that “every single politician is a man or woman with a loving family.”
Shailene, a previoussupporterofBernie Sanders, then reposted the first page of the statement onto herInstagram story. Some criticized themoveas an indicator that the actor and environmental activist had pivoted to supporting the Trump campaign.
In a new interview withBustle, Shailene was asked if she felt “misunderstood” following the move. She replied, “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! Fucking assassin missed! Maybe it was a setup. Maybe it was a conspiracy,'” she continued, emphasizing that “two people died.”
“That is devastating. I could not understand how people were speaking about something with such passion for death,” Shailene added before noting that she only shared the first page of Melania’s statement “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.’ I posted that letter because I thought it was a beautiful message of human compassion, and then I forgot about it because I have a life and I don’t live for what social media says,” she continued.
Shailene then said that she only heard of any criticism because her friend texted her about it. She recalled, “I was like, ‘Oh my God,thatis nowthis?’ Hundreds of articles because I posted about a woman saying she’s grateful her husband is alive? Really?”
“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,” she concluded.
As to where she stands politically now, she said, “I am on the board of different organizations. It’s sad to me that the minute we say one thing, we are immediately isolated from a large portion of our brothers and sisters in this country. My beliefs are pretty well-known by the things that I have done publicly in the quote-unquote activist world. But until the noise is feeding what I want to feed — which is a world that feels safe and soft and truly inclusive — that [is something to work out] with my people behind closed doors.”
You can read the full interviewhere.
