Kristen Stewart’s love affair with Edward Cullen has officially come to an end.

The actress who spent five movies as clumsy YA heroine Bella Swan in the Twilight saga is far from enamored with the sparkling vampire at the center of the franchise. But she still holds a soft spot for his beloved Bella.

“Let’s talk about Bella for a second,” podcast host Amanda Hirsch prompted Stewart on a recent episode of Not Skinny But Not Fat. “Do we not like her in retrospect?”

“Do we not like her?,” Stewart asked, surprised. “Whoa. Hey, you better be careful. I don’t know if you can tell who you’re talking to right now.”

Hirsch then points out that Bella was “a little desperate” to be with Robert Pattinson’s sparkling vampire and perhaps too willing to change her life — i.e. switch to an all-blood diet — for his sake. While Stewart doesn’t disagree with those points, she quickly jumps to Bella’s defense.

“Yeah, but, he was trying to sort of control whether or not she made choices for herself,” Stewart argued, adding, “I would have broken up with him immediately.”

Deana Newcomb/Summitt

Referencing Edward’s initial refusal to let Bella join him as a vampire, she continued, “I mean if I was like, ‘Hey, I want to try that,’ and he was like, ‘No, this is just for me,’ I would be like, ‘Well, this is also just for me. My whole life. Without you.’”

In the movies, adapted from Stephenie Meyer's hit novels, Stewart plays high school misfit Bella, who finds herself inextricably drawn to the sexy bloodsucker despite the constant threat he poses to her life. Over the course of five movies, they forge a relationship that often puts her in danger and eventually ends with Bella abandoning humanity to spend forever with Edward as a vampire.

While many romantasy readers across the globe may protest Stewart’s point, there are plenty who agree: Edward’s behavior in the franchise has become a hotly debated topic, with some dubbing their dynamic an example of an abusive relationship.

“I get the sort of protection thing, but you gotta let a girl make her own choices,” Stewart concluded.

Over a decade after the franchise came to a close, Stewart has not been shy about voicing her Twilight opinions. Reflecting on the romance saga earlier this year, the publicly queer star said she now sees the films as having noticeably gay undertones.

“I don’t think it necessarily started off that way, but I also think that the fact that I was there at all, it was percolating,” she told Variety.  “It’s such a gay movie."

Between Stewart’s comments and the franchise’s cultural imprint, something about Edward and Bella’s romance is just hard to leave behind — just ask Lionsgate, the studio behind the blockbuster film series that is currently in the process of bringing the love story back to screens as a television show.

In the meantime, Stewart explores yet another complex relationship dynamic in her new romantic thriller, Love Lies Bleeding.

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