Kristen Stewart has branded her long-term romance with ex Robert Pattinson "gross." Photo / Getty Images
Kristen Stewart has branded her long-term romance with ex Robert Pattinson "gross." Photo / Getty Images
Famously private Kristen Stewart has branded her long-term romance with ex Robert Pattinson "gross" in a revealing interview about her love life.
The 26-year-old dated her Twilight co-star for several years before their high-profile split in 2013, a year after the actress was pictured kissing married director Rupert Sanders.
"People wanted me and Rob to be together so badly that our relationship was made into a product. It wasn't real life anymore," Stewart told The New York Times Style Magazine.
"And that was gross to me. It's not that I want to hide who I am or hide anything I'm doing in my life. It's that I don't want to become a part of a story for entertainment value."
The shocking June 2012 photos of Stewart locking lips with her Snow White and the Huntsman director, who was married to Liberty Ross at the time, sent fans into meltdown and forced Stewart to make a grovelling apology.
"I'm deeply sorry for the hurt and embarrassment I've caused to those close to me and everyone this has affected," she said at the time.
"This momentary indiscretion has jeopardised the most important thing in my life, the person I love and respect the most, Rob. I love him, I love him, I'm so sorry."
Stewart and Pattinson eventually called in quits in May 2013. Pattinson is currently dating English singer FWA Twigs, real name Tahliah Debrett Barnett.
Kristen Stewart and Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders. Photo / Getty Images
For the past three years, Stewart has been dating visual-effects producer Alicia Cargile, on and off. The relationship has encouraged her to be more open about her love life.
"I would never talk about any of my relationships before, but once I started dating girls it seemed like there was an opportunity to represent something really positive," she said.
"I still want to protect my personal life, but I don't want to seem like I'm protecting the idea, so that does sort of feel like I owe something to people."
The Breaking Dawn star said she is still working out how much of herself to reveal.
"How do you feel like you're not being stolen from, yet at the same time not guard yourself to the point of depriving yourself of so much goodness in life?" she said.
While acknowledging she is "not the typical showman", Stewart admitted she has a need to "be seen".
"I want so badly to expose myself. I want to be understood and I want to be seen, and I want to do that in the rawest, purest, most naked way I can," she said.
The Hollywood star, who lives in Los Feliz, also revealed she battled "debilitating physical anxiety" in her teens and early twenties.
Her anxiety these days "is no longer negative or fear-based," Stewart said. "I do think that's because of the storms I have weathered. It's not that they make you stronger or calloused - but they do make you a human."
