I Know What I Don’t Want

Looking to the future. Danica Patrick, who dated NFL star Aaron Rodgers for nearly two years before their summer 2020 split, is planning ahead — and knows what she’s looking for in a partner.

“When you know what you don’t want, you know what you do want,” the former race car driver, 38, says in Us Weekly’s exclusive sneak peek of the Friday, March 19, episode of Tamron Hall. “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, who was previously married to Paul Edward Hospenthal from 2005 to 2013, noted that she’s noticed changes within herself, allowing her to refocus the way she sees her relationships.

“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. And so the person is not seen in such a judgmental light anymore or I’m not judging myself. So, you know as you heal you also are able to coexist with people in a much more, a much easier way.”

Rodgers, 37, has since gotten engaged to Shailene Woodley, the Big Little Lies actress confirmed in February.

Although Rodgers and Patrick never publicly revealed when they ended their relationship, Woodley, 29, noted during a Tonight Show appearance that she and the Green Bay Packers quarterback met amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“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,” the Divergent actress told Jimmy Fallon in February. “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. I didn’t really grow up with sports, especially American sports. It was never really on my radar. When we met, also, I knew he was a football guy, but I didn’t know, like, what kind of a football guy he was. And I’m still constantly learning.”

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