Chris Zylka didn’t want to be sliving without the spotlight.
The Shark Night actor—who got engaged to Paris Hilton in December 2017—revealed that they ultimately broke up 10 months later because he didn’t want to lose sight of his acting career while dating the Simple Life alum.
“Acting wasn’t a choice for me during that time,” he shared on the Dec. 6 episode of Ned’s Declassified Podcast Survival Guide, “which I completely understood, because of just things she had been through in her life and in her personal life.”
However, Zylka realized he needed to work in Hollywood to feel fulfilled.
“It’s one thing that I actually couldn’t live without,” he explained. “It was a huge wakeup call that performance art is super important to me and the camaraderie and the family that you grow on each and every set.”
Zylka felt he was at the peak of his career going into the final season of HBO’s The Leftovers, but had to put his career on the back burner for about two years during their romance.
