Actress Shailene Woodley is not backing down after receiving backlash for sharing a statement by former First Lady Melania Trump after the assassination attempt on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“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,” Woodley said to Bustle.
The “Divergent” actress said she was disturbed by people seeking violence in the wake of the shooting in July in Butler, Pennsylvania. The statement penned by the former first lady was a breath of fresh air.
“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! F—ing assassin missed! Maybe it was a setup. Maybe it was a conspiracy.’ I was going, ‘Have we forgotten that two human lives were taken?’ Two people died. That is sad. That is devastating. I could not understand how people were speaking about something with such passion for death,” Woodley said.
Melania Trump issued a statement July 14 when she thanked the Secret Service agents and law enforcement who protected her husband, She also called for unity.
“A monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine attempted to ring out Donald’s passion – his laughter, ingenuity, love of music, and inspiration,” Melania Trump wrote. “The core facets of my husband’s life – his human side – were buried below the political machine. Donald, the generous and caring man who I have been with through the best of times and the worst of times.”
“Let us not forget that differing opinions, policy, and political games are inferior to love. Our personal, structural, and life commitment – until death – is at serious risk. Political concepts are simple when compared to us, human beings,” the statement continued.
Woodley just shared the first page of the statement to her Instagram stories; the page focused on Trump’s humanity, then it became “more political.”
Woodley said she was shocked to find out there was backlash from three repost on social media.
“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?” she said.
“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,” Woodley added.
Woodley admitted her political beliefs are “pretty well-known.”
She said the rush to “cancel” people on social media is “a dangerous thing.”
“I’m like, d—, I do one thing that someone doesn’t understand — not even [disagrees with], doesn’t understand — and there isn’t a question of, ‘I wonder what she means by that.’ It’s an immediate, ‘Oh, she’s this type of a person,’ which is just a dangerous thing that’s happening in general these days. Instead of being inquisitive to try and dissect and discover, we pigeonhole and cancel. Man, it’s so destructive,” she said.
