Danica Patrick Opens up About Dating After Aaron Rodgers Split

Danica Patrick continues to move forward after splitting with Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers last summer. The former NASCAR star appeared on Tamron Hall this week and talked about what she wants in a partner as she continues to grow as a person.

“When you know what you don’t want, you know what you do want,” Patrick, 38, said in the clip obtained by US Weekly. “It’s not necessarily that they have their work cut out for him but that they’re going to be an extremely high-quality person with a lot of boxes to check. It’s not as though there are boxes to check; it’s just that I know what I want now and I’m not willing to compromise [or] bend as much.”

Patrick went to say that when she notices changes in herself, she can look at relationships differently. “There’s also this meeting on the other side of going, once I have healed, and I have processed and I have accepted the imperfections that exist within me, I now give permission for the other person to be imperfect, and I also don’t see their flaws as much,” she explained. “I use this reference because it’s mine: If someone’s lazy, I judge that right because I don’t allow myself to be lazy. So now if I can create a healthy dynamic within myself of maybe reframing it and doing it more, which is ‘resting’ now, if someone’s resting, it used to be called lazy, but I’m not triggered anymore.”

Patrick, who was married to Paul Edward Hospenthal from 2005 to 2013, began dating Rodgers in 2018. When the two split in July of last year, there was an early report of Rodgers being in a relationship with actress Shailene Woodley. In February, Rodgers announced and Woodley confirmed the two were engaged.

“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,” Woodley told Jimmy Fallon last month. “He’s, first off, just a wonderful, incredible human being. But I never thought I’d be engaged with somebody who threw balls for a living. Like, I never thought as a little girl … ‘Yeah, when I grow up, I’m gonna marry someone who throws balls! Yeah!’ But he’s really just so good at it.”