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Shailene Woodley Reveals She Was ‘Very, Very Sick’ While Shooting the Divergent Movies

Shailene Woodley revealed that her acting career almost ended, just when it was starting to take off.

While promoting her new movie Ending, Beginnings, the Big Little Lies star told The New York Times she battled with a life-threatening medical condition that nearly forced her to “let go” of her career while filming the Divergent movies.

“I haven’t spoken much about this yet publicly, and I will one day, but I was very, very sick in my early twenties,” Shailene Woodley shared. “While I was doing the Divergent movies and working hard, I also was struggling with a deeply personal, very scary physical situation.”

Woodley in Allegiant (2016)

Courtesy Everett Collection

Without going into specifics, Woodley revealed she was forced to take a step back from the spotlight. “Because of that, I said no to a lot of opportunities because I needed to get better, and those jobs ended up going to peers of mine who I love,” she explained. “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!'”

Though the 28-year-old didn’t elaborate on the details of her illness, she said it was unclear if she’d be able to continue working. “I was in a place where I had no choice but to just surrender and let go of my career, and it brought out this negative voice in my mind that kept spinning for years and years afterward,” Woodley said, adding that outside factors were also adding to the destructive narrative.

“In my late teens, I had a strong idea of my identity and the meaning of my life, but then I went through an abusive relationship,” she said. “That combined with, honestly, the commercial success I had in this industry began to wear on my strength.”

The actor, who became a household name for The Secret Life of the American Teenager in 2008 and The Fault in Our Stars in 2012, starred as Tris in the 2014 dystopian film trilogy, Divergent, which also included Insurgent in 2015 and Allegiant in 2016. A fourth movie titled Ascendant was scheduled for a 2017 theatrical release but was canceled—allegedly for fiscal reasons.

Thankfully, Woodley told the publication that she has since fully recovered from her health scare and is in a better place now. “Now I’m on the other side of it, thank God,” she said. “A lot of the last few years has been about focusing on mental health for me, and it’s a slow process. But because of that work, 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.”

Woodley added, “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.”

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Shailene Woodley Says She Was Strip-Searched After Standing Rock Arrest

Shailene Woodley revealed new and horrifying details of her 2016 arrest at Standing Rock in a recent interview with Marie Claire UK.

The actress and activist joined thousands of demonstrators last October on the front lines of Standing Rock, where they were gathered to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which was set to be built over portions of the Sioux Nation’s sacred land.

Woodley was arrested on October 10—which happened to be Indigenous Peoples’ Day. While the fact that she was arrested is well known, Woodley is only now sharing the gruesome details of what transpired between her and the local police.

“I was strip-searched,” Woodley told Marie Claire. “Like get naked, turn over, spread your butt cheeks, bend over. They were looking for drugs in my ass.”

She added, “When you’re in a jail cell and they shut that door, you realize no one can save you. If there’s a fire and they decide not to open the door, you’ll die. You are a caged animal.”

This isn’t the first time Woodley has spoken out about her very public arrest, which was streamed live and has since been viewed by more than 5 million people on Facebook.

Just days after the arrest, Woodley wrote an essay for Time explaining that she was there in solidarity with the indigenous people who “we are still silencing [for] their dedication to protect us from the planetary consequences that will catastrophically bleed from our ignorance.

“We wear their heritage, their sacred totems, as decoration and in fashion trends, failing to honor their culture,” she wrote. “Headdresses, feathers, arrows. Moccasins, sage, beadwork. You know what I’m talking about, Coachella.”

As Woodley noted to Marie Claire, she’s not letting her arrest slow down her activist mindset. Instead, the actress has started a nonprofit called Up to Us, which provides people across the U.S. with the community-organizing tools they need to start their own movements.

“There’s a misconception that, in order to start a movement, you need to have gone to college, or have a ‘name,’ or look a certain way,” Woodley said. “But you don’t. We want to eradicate that narrative.”

As for something simple that everyone can do right now to make a difference, Woodley advised that you start by simply educating yourself on the issues that matter most to you.

“None of us are perfect,” Woodley said. “To me, the biggest shift we can make is the mindfulness around these things. That’s the catalyst for change. We must wake up every morning and ask ourselves, ‘How can I do more? How am I willing to shift my lifestyle to actually create the change I complain about?’ Now, all of a sudden you’re empowered, you’re passionate, you have a fuel beneath your feet to move forward in a way that’s conducive not only for your own personal life but also for the world as well.”

The Morton County Sheriff’s Department was not immediately available for comment.

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