What Disease Does Shailene Woodley Have? The Actress Has Been Struggling for a While

When actress Shailene Woodley isn't raking in Emmys or peacefully protesting, she's facing an uphill battle at home. The star recently told The Hollywood Reporter that she was "finally on the tail end of" a mystery illness that had left her in debilitating pain.

Thankfully, she has a new fiancé Aaron Rodgers for comfort in tough times, but concerned fans want to know: What disease does Shailene have? Here's what we know.

In an interview with The New York Times in April 2020, Shailene revealed that her health struggle has lasted terrifyingly long. "I haven't spoken much about this yet publicly, and I will one day, but I was very, very sick in my early 20s. While I was doing the Divergent movies and working hard, I also was struggling with a deeply personal, very scary physical situation."

Now, the actress has opened up further to explain how she's finally on the tail end of her health battle. "I'm on the tail end of it, which is very exciting, but it's an interesting thing, going through something so physically dominating while also having so many people pay attention to the choices you make, the things you say, what you do, what you look like. It spun me out for a while." Shailene also added she felt "isolated and alone."

Shailene implied that her condition wasn't physically visible, which was part of the struggle because people couldn't outwardly tell she was suffering. "Unless someone can see that you have a broken arm or a broken leg, it's really difficult for people to relate to the pain that you're experiencing when it's a silent, quiet, and invisible pain," she said.

While many have speculated that Shailene had cancer (perhaps due to her role in The Fault in Our Stars playing a teen with cancer), it sounds like she's not quite ready to reveal what she has been struggling with. She did say in the interview that there was a positive takeaway from her illness: the ability to disconnect from social media.

She explained, "The more I paid attention to the noise that was surrounding me, the longer it was taking my body and my mind to heal because I wasn’t focused on myself. I was focused on an image of myself via the lens of everyone around us."

Being able to step away from the internet and focus on her healing journey gave Shailene the strength to fight her internal uphill battle, and now it seems like she is finally feeling better.

When Shailene is ready to tell the world about the full extent of her health journey, she will. Or, she might keep the details private. Fans are just happy she's feeling better! You can catch the Big Little Lies star in more than a few upcoming projects on the horizon, such as The Last Letter From Your Lover, an adaptation of Jojo Moyes' 2008 novel of the same name.