Lupita Nyong'o 'didn't love' Jared Leto dating rumors: 'It was drawing attention away from the work'

"I didn’t want that sort of attention," the actor says in a new interview.

Lupita Nyong'o is finally speaking out about how much she "didn't love" all those romance rumors linking her to Jared Leto.

In her new Glamour cover story interview, the A Quiet Place: Day One star looks back on the time immediately following her first Oscar win 10 years ago for Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave, which was her very first feature film role. She was overwhelmed by her overnight rise to superstardom and the resulting gossip that alleged she was romantically involved with Leto.

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"I paid no attention," Nyong'o told the outlet about all the gossip following the 2014 awards season. "I actually deafened my ears to all the discourse about the awards because I was going through so many firsts. The red carpet was new, everything was new to me."

Nyong'o revealed she's still friends with the 30 Seconds to Mars frontman — "I can hit him up about things," she added. "We see each other, and it’s always a warm experience" — but she "didn’t love" the way in which they were being talked about at the time, i.e. all the speculation that they were an item.

"It was drawing attention away from the work," Nyong'o said. "I didn’t want that sort of attention. I didn’t want all that chatter to deter from the joy I was having becoming his friend."

Related: How A Quiet Place: Day One tells a Part II origin story

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Nyong'o and Leto both won their first Oscars on the same night and in the same supporting category — Leto won for his role in Dallas Buyers Club. They were continuously spotted out at events and parties together, prompting many to speculate that they were dating, but they both maintain they're just friends.

While Nyong'o wasn't a fan of the spotlight when it came to her romantic life, she did learn to use it in positive ways. She used her platform to become a vocal supporter of the Black Lives Matter, Oscars So White, and Me Too movements.

"There’s been a lot of amplification of things that hadn’t really been talked about before, and I definitely have been a beneficiary of many of those movements," Nyong'o said. Although there has been "some moving" of the needle, she added that it’s "too soon to do a retrospective" on how those movements have had lasting change on the industry.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.