Brian Austin Green has nothing to hide from fiancée Sharna Burgess.
“I think if you’re brand new in a relationship and you’re not even to the point where you’ve made it official with other people, something’s wrong if you’re feeling the need to go through that person’s text messages,” Green said on the Saturday, July 11, episode of the “I Do, Part 2” podcast.
“I think it’s important for you to take a step back from it and decide how much is truly the other person and how much of it is your own stuff,” he added.
An open book
Green said people who’ve been hurt before struggle to let go of old patterns, but that shouldn’t follow them into new relationships.
The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum explained how that outlook applied to his relationship with Burgess. “To me, [in] a healthy relationship, everything’s open. Sharna can go through my phone. She can go through my emails. She can go through absolutely everything that I have,” he said.
“I don’t hide any of it, and I love the feeling of her being able to do that and know that she’s not gonna find anything that’s gonna upset her,” he continued. “I make [it] very clear in my life that I’m not gonna make any choices that would hurt her feelings or negatively affect her. I won’t make any choices that compromise the relationship in any way.”
Romance timeline
Green and Burgess first got together in late 2020 and went Instagram official in January 2021. They welcomed their son, Zane, in June 2022 and announced their engagement the following year.
Before dating Burgess, Green was married to Megan Fox for more than a decade. The two finalized their divorce in 2021.
Green later talked about how his relationship with Fox changed the way he handles relationships today.
“Until Sharna, my ex and I were together for almost 15 years. We were married for almost 10 years and I led with physical attraction,” he said. “First, I’d be physically attracted to somebody and then sort of build a relationship around that.”
‘Different’ approach
Green said things were “different” from the beginning with Burgess.
“I was divorced, which I didn’t expect. I had three [young] kids. I was a single parent,” he recalled. “And I knew that I didn’t want to repeat things that I had done.”
“So I went through all sorts of therapy and all sorts of things to really figure out what it was that I brought into a relationship that was just toxic and wasn’t good and wasn’t helping the relationship at all,” he continued.
Friendship first
That process taught Green the importance of being “friends with someone first” before letting a relationship become romantic.
“I think when you started from a place of a genuine connection with someone, then you’re not so concerned about whether they are truly into you or not,” he said. “Because you guys are already speaking to each other in a very transparent way. Sharna and I talked about our best qualities and our worst qualities together. We sort of put it all out on the table.”