Actress Anna Kendrick recently reflected on an emotionally abusive relationship that she had trouble ending. On an episode of “Armchair Expert,” Kendrick said, “I have so much shame about not leaving.” She continued, “I believed that if we broke up, if he left, basically it was a confirmation that it’s because I’m impossible. I’m lucky he’s even tolerating my [expletive].
The “Pitch Perfect” actress explained to Dax Shepard and Monica Padman that she was happily dating a man she didn’t name for years before their relationship changed, and he turned into a stranger who scared her. Kendrick said, “I was with someone — this was somebody I lived with, for all intents and purposes, my husband. We had embryos together; this was my person. And then, about six years in, somewhere around there, I remember telling my brother, when things had first kind of gone down, ‘I’m living with a stranger. Like, I don’t know what’s happening.’”
Kendrick said their romance turned after her partner told her he had feelings for a woman who was significantly younger than him. She said she found this revelation “really scary and really confusing,” but she was in love with him, so she wanted to make it work. Kendrick recalled telling her ex, “It was like, ‘This is terrifying, but let’s go talk about this,’” adding that his having feelings for another woman wasn’t a dealbreaker for her.
The “Trolls” actress explained that her partner didn’t want to talk about it and wanted to sweep the issues under the rug. For the next year after that incident, Kendrick said she felt there was an unspoken rule not to discuss the change. Whenever she tried to talk about it, he would become hostile and make her feel like her issues didn’t matter. According to Kendrick, the relationship dynamic evolved into “I’m curled in a ball, you’re screaming at me, I don’t know how we got here.” She continued, “It was so much easier for me to assume that I was crazy or doing something wrong.” Kendrick added that she always felt he was calm, relaxed, and collected, so she must be the one provoking him.
After reflecting on the relationship, Kendrick said the end of her once-loving relationship was toxic. She said, “It was hard for me to recognize this as an abusive relationship because it didn’t follow the trajectory of a frog in water.” Kendrick’s abuse experience and not instantly seeing it as abuse is why Kendrick says she was drawn to her most recent role in “Alice, Darling,” which was released at the end of last year.
In September 2022, Kendrick told People Magazine, “I think my rep sent [the script] to me because he knew what I’d been dealing with and sent it along. Because he was like, ‘This sort of speaks to everything that you’ve been talking to me about.’” Kendrick added that she’d seen a lot of movies about toxic or abusive relationships, and it didn’t look like what was happening to her. She also said that it helped her minimalize her experience. Thankfully, Anna Kendrick escaped her abusive relationship, but unfortunately, thousands of women don’t get the same opportunity.
