Shelley was dating Academy-Award-nominated writer and director Nicholas Mayer in the late '70s. When she got the part of Charlie's Angel Tiffany Welles in 1979, tabloids reported that the pair had split up that very week. Shelley, a very private person, was hurt by it and denied the report. But she also knew that such things came with the job. "I'd be a very hard person if it didn't hurt," she told Photoplay in 1979, "so all you can do is prepare yourself to deal with those disadvantages as they occur."
