Zach Braff is sending love to girlfriend Florence Pugh as the Midsommar actress celebrates her 25th birthday. Sharing photos of their time together, including outdoor adventures and travels, the Scrubs actor, 45, wished a happy birthday to “the most fun person I’ve ever met.”
“I would have felt blessed to have smiled with your [sic] for one night. I can’t believe I get to giggle with you everyday,” the filmmaker continued his Jan. 3 post. “What a pleasure it is to know you. What a gift to the world it was that you were born.” Pugh reposted Braff’s message on her own Instagram Story and added a red heart emoji, before sharing some photos from her birthday celebrations, which included gold balloons and dancing. “It’s my birthday,” she wrote.
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Pugh and Braff have kept their relationship largely quiet since they were first spotted holding hands in April 2019, but the Little Women actress has spoken out repeatedly to combat criticism of their 21-year age difference. In April 2020, after posting a birthday tribute to her beau, Pugh spoke out on Instagram about the “horrid” and “hateful” comments she had been receiving about their relationship.
“I will not allow that behavior on my page,” she said in a video on her profile. “I’m not about that. It makes me upset. It makes me sad that during this time when we really all need to be together, we need to be supporting one another, we need to be loving one another. The world is aching and the world is dying and a few of you decided to bully for no reason.”
“I’m 24 years old. I have been working since I was 17 years old,” she continued. “I have been earning money 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 do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love, and I would never in my life ever, ever tell someone who they can and cannot love.”
She ended with a strong message to her followers: “The abuse that you throw at him is abuse that you’re throwing at me, and I don’t want those followers… I don’t want that on my page,” Pugh said. “It’s embarrassing, it’s sad and I don’t know when cyber bullying became trendy.”
