Kristen Stewart: 'Robert Pattinson relationship turned into a product'

The public's image of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson's romance disgusted the actress.

The Twilight stars famously dated for five years after meeting on the set of the vampire drama in 2008. They split in 2013, months after the actress' infamous fling with her married Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders came to light in the summer of 2012.

The couple rekindled its relationship following the controversy, but ultimately split in 2014, and now Kristen reveals it was difficult for her to navigate the relationship because it didn't seem "real anymore".

"People wanted me and Rob to be together so badly that our relationship was made into a product," she tells the New York Times' T magazine. "It wasn't real life anymore. And that was gross to me. It's not that I want to hide who I am or hide anything I'm doing in my life. It's that I don't want to become a part of a story for entertainment value."

The 26-year-old insists she understands the public's fascination with her private life, but she wants to be careful about what she reveals to the world.

"I'm not the typical showman, but at the same time, I want so badly to expose myself," she says. "I want to be understood and I want to be seen, and I want to do that in the rawest, purest, most naked way I can."

And her desire to do that has led her to become more open about her romance with girlfriend Alicia Cargile.

"I would never talk about any of my relationships before, but once I started dating girls it seemed like there was an opportunity to represent something really positive," she continues. "I still want to protect my personal life, but I don't want to seem like I'm protecting the idea, so that does sort of feel like I owe something to people."