Sally Field was not Burt Reynolds’s true love.

Reynolds officially referred to her as such in 2015, three years before his death. He expressed regret for not making their romance, which began on the set of 1977’s Smokey and the Bandit, work, and raved about how much he missed her.

The actress’ perspective is markedly different.

“He was not someone I could be around,” she said in a new interview. “He was simply not right for me in any way.”

Field, 75, claimed Reynolds, who died of a heart attack at 82, “somehow invented in his rethinking of everything that I was more important to him than he had thought, but I wasn’t. He desired what he did not possess. I did not want to deal with it.”

Field’s memoir, In Pieces, was released on September 18, 2018, 12 days after Reynolds’ death, and it detailed their complicated relationship. She described him as dominating and abusive, and she went into detail about his drug use, stating he used Percodan, Valium, and barbiturates while working on Smokey and the Bandit.

“To me, what mattered was for that moment in time, I did it. I did it. I landed it, and I thanked them for feeling it. A lot of people didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. They didn’t know what it was to be a performer and have your nose, ears, and legs out there to be ridiculed and criticized. They don’t know what that feels like. They’re not in the arena. They’re handing out the deodorant in the stands.”