'I am 24 years old...I do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love.'
"I do not need you to tell me who I should or should not love."
Florence Pugh announced as much in a video posted to Instagram this week. The 24-year-old actor has been dating Zach Braff, 45, for more than a year and is speaking out about fans who have taken to her comments to "bully for no reason" their relationship.
It started when she posted a photo of Braff on Monday for his 45th birthday. "Within about eight minutes of the photo being posted, I had about 70 percent of the comments hurling abuse and being horrid and basically bullying someone on my page," Pugh says in the video. Afterward, she disabled comments on the photo.
"I have been working since I was 17 years old...I became an adult when I was 18 years old, and I started paying taxes when I was 18 years old. I'll underline this fact: I am 24 years old," she continues. "I would never in my life -- ever, ever -- tell anyone who they can or cannot love. It is not your place. And really, it has nothing to do with you.
"The abuse that you throw at him," Pugh concludes, "is abuse that you're throwing at me."
"To those of you that this video applies to- please listen," she captioned the video. "Please learn. Being hateful is not trendy."
Pugh previously took to the comments section to defend the 20-year-plus age difference between Braff and herself. After he left an emoji on one of Pugh's posts, a user replied to him saying, "you're 44 years old." To which she replied, "And yet he got it ??"
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