**Florence Pugh’s Love Story with Zach Braff: From Quiet Romance to Enduring Friendship**
*15 min read*
2020 was a big year for Florence Pugh—her career has only gotten bigger since then. After breakout roles in *Midsommar* and *Little Women* (for which she earned an Oscar nomination), and a buzzy performance as Yelena Belova in *Black Widow*, Pugh has become one of Hollywood’s most in-demand young stars, with roles in *Don’t Worry Darling* and the *Dune* sequel.
What’s less known about the starlet are the details around her love life and the over two years she spent dating *Scrubs* star Zach Braff, who is 21 years her senior. While Pugh revealed in September 2022 that they quietly broke up months earlier, the two were a serious couple and even adopted a dog together during quarantine.
Below is everything we know about their love story, from beginning to end, along with the friendship that still endures.
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### August 2018
In the fall of 2018, Zach Braff began liking photos of Florence Pugh on Instagram. This could have been around the time he cast her in his 2019 short film *In The Time It Takes to Get There*, or an early signifier of their relationship.
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### March 2019
The relationship between Pugh and Braff remained mostly under the radar initially. Pugh later reflected on how they handled the public’s interest in their romance.
“We’ve been trying to do this separation without the world knowing, because it’s been a relationship that everybody has an opinion on,” Pugh said in September 2022. “We just felt something like this would really do us the benefit of not having millions of people telling us how happy they are that we’re not together. So we’ve done that. I automatically get a lumpy throat when I talk about it.”
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### January 2023
Months after their breakup, Zach Braff showed that they remained on good terms by posting a heartfelt tribute to Pugh on his Instagram Story for her 27th birthday on January 3.
“Happy Birthday, legend,” he wrote, tagging Pugh in the post.
This affectionate post came just weeks after Pugh shared the first look photo and trailer of their upcoming movie *A Good Person*, which Braff directed and Pugh starred in.
On January 12, 2023, *Vogue* published its cover story on Pugh. Both she and Braff spoke candidly about each other in the piece.
Pugh described their split as recent and said she was still figuring out whether she would get her own place in Los Angeles, where they had lived together during their relationship.
“It’s all very new,” she explained. “My breakup has been very new, so I’m figuring that out [whether I’ll get my own place in Los Angeles].”
She also addressed the public’s reaction to their 21-year age gap.
“We weren’t in anyone’s faces. It was just that people didn’t like it,” she said. “They imagined me with someone younger and someone in blockbusters. I think young relationships in Hollywood are so easily twisted because they add to the gossip sites. It’s exciting to watch. And I think I was in a relationship that didn’t do any of that.”
Braff, meanwhile, spoke glowingly about Pugh’s talent and presence.
“She’s just magnetic,” he said. “You cannot take your eyes off of her. And it’s not just her beauty and it’s not just her acting ability, it’s that thing, that magic thing that transcends the screen, where anyone and everyone goes: I want to see whatever this person does.”
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### December 2023
They ended their relationship in 2022 after three years of dating. On December 13, 2023, Braff appeared on SiriusXM’s *The Jess Cagle Show* and shared that he and Pugh still “love each other” though they are now “just friends.”
“Well, we love each other. We love each other and we’re friends,” Braff said when asked about their current relationship, revealing they had chatted that very morning. “I was on the Today Show this morning, and she said she wanted to see pictures of what my outfit was to give approvals, so we love each other a lot.”
He also praised her performances, particularly in *A Good Person*, which they had promoted earlier that year.
“Listen, I think it’s pretty clear across the world that I’m not biased when I say that she is one of the finest actresses working today,” Braff said. “I think anyone who gives watching *A Good Person* a chance will see that she’s just extraordinary, and I just feel so lucky that I got to have her be my leading lady.”
On set, Braff noted how deeply Pugh’s work affected the crew.
“You just look around Video Village, where we have all the monitors and everyone’s sort of hiding from the cameras, and you would just look around and people would have tears streaming down their face and everyone’s jaw just opened,” he recalled. “It was just so raw. People have seen Florence do lots of different types of work—from action movies to period pieces—but this was a different turn for her. This was like current day trauma and also being funny. Her ability to switch between the two with such aplomb… I think she’s a young Meryl Streep.”
Braff added, “I’m not the first to say that.”
He also revealed a fun fact about Pugh’s musical talents: she actually considered pursuing a career in music over acting.
“Well literally, I wrote [the film] for her,” Braff said. “It’s a bespoke character for her, so I was writing to things that I knew she could do. That’s where I got the idea to make her a singer-songwriter, because the world has clearly embraced and loves Florence.”
Braff explained that early in her career, Pugh was uncertain whether she’d follow the actor route or music: “She can do both. Then her career started taking off as an actress, and that got put to the back burner. I’m sure it will return, and she’ll release an album one day.”
“In the movie,” he continued, “she gets to sing several songs, and she actually wrote two that are very beautiful.”
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### November 2025
In an appearance on *The Louis Theroux Podcast* on November 10, Pugh opened up about the public scrutiny surrounding her relationship with Braff.
“With relationships and with romance in this world, it doesn’t matter how much you speak on it or how little you speak on it, people don’t care. They want a story; they want a reality show,” she said. “It doesn’t really matter how much you say you love someone or how much they make you happy. If they don’t like them and it doesn’t fit that image that they want of you, they don’t care. And I think that hurt me.”
Reflecting on the criticism she faced over their age gap, Pugh added, “I stood up for it, and I stood up for him and I stood up for me just being allowed to do whatever the fuck I wanted to do, and that kind of did actually change a few people’s minds. I had a few people in the public eye reach out to me and say I didn’t think of it like that, and thank you for saying that.”
She also shared how her rising fame has altered perceptions of her personal life.
“Since then I’ve got bigger, I’ve become a different star. People will probably want to know a little bit more. I think you have to just ask yourself, the more you expose, the more you’re allowing people to comment on it. And if they don’t know, they can’t really comment on it.”
Pugh vowed to continue defending the people she loves.
“I will always stand up for them. I’ll always make sure that if there needs to be a reset and there needs to be a bit of a smack on the wrist, I will do that because it’s not fair that so much of your life gets to have jabs.”
She called out the online backlash that she and Braff faced, saying, “It got to the point where it was just really horrible to see someone that you are with receiving that.”
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**From a quiet romance to a supportive friendship, Florence Pugh and Zach Braff’s relationship remains a meaningful chapter in both their lives, marked by mutual respect, shared creativity, and genuine affection.**
https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a30770495/florence-pugh-zach-braff-relationship-timeline/