Shailene Woodley Revealed She and Aaron Rodgers Have Actually Been Engaged “for a While”

The actress never thought she'd end up with a guy who "throws balls" for a living.

Today in unexpected-celebrity-pairings news: Shailene Woodley and Aaron Rodgers are officially engaged. As it turns out, though, this news isn’t actually all that new. During her virtual appearance on The Tonight Show on Monday, the Big Little Lies star confirmed her engagement with the Green Bay Packers quarterback, adding that they’d been engaged “for a while” before the rest of us found out.

“For us, it’s not new news, you know?” she told Jimmy Fallon. “So it’s kind of funny. Everybody right now is freaking out over it and we’re like, ‘Yeah, we’ve been engaged for a while.'”

Apparently, Woodley was just as surprised by her relationship fate as we were, explaining that she never imagined herself ending up with an athlete. “He’s, first off, just a wonderful, incredible human being,” she said. “But I never thought I’d be engaged with somebody who threw balls for a living. Like, I never thought as a little girl, I was like, ‘Yeah, when I grow up, I’m gonna marry someone who throws balls! Yeah!’ But he’s really just so good at it.”

It also sounds like Rodgers’ ability to “throw balls” is actually part of what won over the approval of Woodley’s dog, and, consequently, Woodley herself.

“When I first met him, I think my dog, like, pulled me aside and was like, ‘If you don’t date this dude, I will disown you as my mother, because the three feet that I run with you when you throw a ball is nothing compared to the marathon I’m able to run with him,'” the actress joked.

She also admitted that she’s never been to one of his football games, or any at all, partially due to the pandemic.

“We met during this whacky, whacky time and all the stadiums were closed that he was playing in, so I have yet to go to a football game,” she said. “I didn’t really grow up with sports, especially American sports. It was never really on my radar.”

The Fault in Our Stars actress says she knew he was “a football guy” when they met but didn’t know “what kind.” While she added that she’s working on learning more about Rodgers’ career as an athlete, she explained that she’s better acquainted with a different side of him. “I don’t know him as a football guy,” she said. “I know him as, like, the nerd who wants to host Jeopardy!. That’s the dude I know. He just happens to also be very good at sports.”

Inside sources told E! News that the couple “had a very intense connection from the beginning,” explaining why the two decided to get engaged rather quickly. “They both knew early on that it was something special and different from what they had experienced in other relationships. It’s a quick engagement, but for those that know them, it didn’t come as a surprise,” the source said.

Fans who know and follow Rodgers also may not be surprised, since the football star mentioned his engagement in interviews earlier this year, E! News reports.

When accepting the 2020 Most Valuable Player award, he said, “2020 was definitely a crazy year filled with lots of change, growth, some amazing, memorable moments…One hundred-eighty straight days of having my nose hair scraped, a plan for very little fans or no stands the entire season, I got engaged, and I played some of the best football of my career.” He also later thanked his “fiancée” during the NFL Honors event, without any namedropping.

Woodley and Rodgers have yet to make their engagement Instagram official, but insiders also told E! News that they plan to get married “soon”—and we can’t wait to see their wedding guest list.