The actress says when she was with her 'Twilight' co-star, she thought "the public were the enemy."
Kristen Stewart has had a change of heart when it comes to opening up about her personal life.
In an interview with The London Sunday Times, the 26-year-old actress shares how since dating her Twilight co-star, Robert Pattinson, she's altered her outlook when it comes to talking about her love life.
"I wasn’t hiding anything," she says of not speaking much about Pattinson, 30, while they were dating. "I didn’t talk about my first relationships that went public because I wanted things that are mine to be mine. I hated it that details of my life were being turned into a commodity and peddled around the world."
"When I was dating Rob, the public were the enemy -- and that is no way to live," Stewart admits. "It wasn’t this grand statement, ‘I was so confused! Now I’ve realized who I am!’ I have not been struggling."
Stewart -- who is rumored to be dating model Stella Maxwell -- says she now finds being open about her relationships and sexuality can be of some good. "Considering I had so many eyes on me, I suddenly realized [my private life] affects a greater number of people than just me," she explains. "It was an opportunity to surrender a bit of what was mine, to make even one other person feel good about themselves."
As for her screen time with Pattinson, Stewart says she understands why not everyone would like the Twilight films. “I don’t view the whole Twilight blowup as being generally traumatic,” she notes. “It would take someone with a really unhealthy amount of ego to be upset that everyone doesn’t love them. It would be silly to say I don’t care what people think of my work and who I am, but stuff is polarizing, period.”
Further recalling what it was like when she became an overnight A-lister thanks to her role as Bella Swan in the book-turned-movies, Stewart adds, "I used to try too hard, because I was nervous. I felt so uncomfortable addressing the public. I’ve just grown out of it."
In an exclusive interview with ET in October, Stewart also opened up about how she's come to deal with being in the public eye. "I think it takes a minute to sort of acclimate to communicating with so many people at one time, with like, 'the masses,' you know," she shared. "I know people love to say, 'Oh, she doesn't give a...' like, no, I totally do, man!' ...I think I just feel a little bit more uninhibited or something."