This year marks the 10th anniversary of Whoopi Goldberg’s genuinely iconic quote about relationships, with the star often going viral for her no-nonsense quip: “I don’t want somebody in my house.”
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If you need the full context, Whoopi said this in a 2016 interview with the New York Times, where she admitted she’s “not that interested” in getting married again. Then-60-year-old Whoopi added to the publication: “I’m much happier on my own. I can spend as much time with somebody as I want to spend, but I’m not looking to be with somebody forever or live with someone. I don’t want somebody in my house.”
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When asked if she’d always felt this way, Whoopi stated: “Yes. I’m the round peg, and marriage is the square hole. You can’t have a square hole, can you?”
Whoopi has been married three times before, and was just 18 years old when she married her first husband, Alvin Martin, in 1973. They split in 1979, after welcoming a daughter together, and Whoopi went on to marry David Claessen in 1986. They broke up two years later.
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Whoopi’s final marriage was to Lyle Trachtenberg, who she wed in 1994 before splitting the following year, when she was around 40. And the star has been open about her total lack of interest in coupling up again ever since.
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In addition to her NYT interview, Whoopi said on the Tamron Hall Show in 2019: “People keep saying: ‘Well, you’ll find somebody.’ I’m not looking for anyone. I am very happy. I don’t want to live with anybody.”
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“For me, there is a commitment. When you make a commitment to someone else, it’s a commitment to ask their opinion and listen, and work it out with them. I don’t want to do that,” she went on. “I don’t want to share money. I know it’s terrible, but I don’t want to do it.”
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And Whoopi doubled down again in a candid conversation with Interview, with the now-70-year-old star explaining: “In the last 25 years, I recognized that not everybody’s cut out to be in a relationship. Some people are just cut out to be one-night stands.”
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“I don’t want to live with anybody. I lived with my daughter. That’s all I can handle. I have lots of people that I love, but I don’t need them living with me. I don’t need to be sleeping with them,” Whoopi added, before clarifying that being single doesn’t mean she is lonely. “I don’t necessarily get lonely because there’s enough people around who don’t let me.”
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“But most people are not comfortable being alone because we’ve been taught that there’s something wrong with you if you’re not a pair, that being singular, eating singular, is a bad thing,” Whoopi continued. “Sometimes you don’t want to eat with other people. Sometimes you just want to go and have some pasta. You don’t want to say, ‘Do you want red wine or white wine?’ I don’t give a fuck what you want.”
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And Whoopi’s comments have resonated with many happily long-term singletons, who praised the star for normalizing what is a perfectly healthy, enjoyable, and — dare I say — oftentimes preferable lifestyle. Reacting to the interview on a Reddit forum, one person wrote: “I swear the mindset people have for people who are single, especially if they are older is just so weird. If you are comfortable, know yourself, and have a productive life you are not going to feel lonely. There are people who feel lonely when in a relationship or married.”
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“As a non-lonely single middle aged person, I always wonder if these people who assume we’re all lonely know what friends are. I don’t need romantic companionship to feel cared for and care for others. A lot of people seem to use romantic attachment as some kind of bandaid for whatever they don’t want to deal with within themselves, but you can’t actually have a healthy romantic relationship like that,” another added.
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“I’m edging on 30 and have never been in a long-term relationship – I experience attraction to other people and I’ve dated a bit, but I always find I’m just happier and more fulfilled in platonic relationships. It’s nice to know that I’m not weird for feeling this way and that there are other happily single people out there, too,” one more replied.
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“The other day, my manager joked she could set me up with someone. People cannot grasp other people not wanting to be in a relationship. It almost like there’s an air of pity from her or that she perceives me as ‘lonely,’” another user shared. “I’m realizing now it’s because these people lack perspective. They view things in a ‘one size fits all’ way. I’m also realizing how much relationships are pushed when we’re teenagers, the pining, the longing that’s associated with teenaged relationships. And there not much guidance! Everything relating to relationships in the media that we were exposed to as teens show us unrealistic and unhealthy relationships. If I could go back in time, I would advise myself not to focus so much on staying in the wrong relationship as a teen, but how was I to know better?”
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“I’ve been single all 34 years of my life. I couldn’t imagine living any other way,” one more commented, and another echoed: “I’ve been single since birth, 38 years ago. never had a relationship, never wanted one. I’m so so happy to be alone, to live alone.”
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As somebody who is also very happily single by choice, never lonely, and couldn’t imagine living life any other way, I absolutely love that Whoopi has inspired others to speak out about their own positive experiences. What do you think? Let me know down below!It’s the 100th anniversary of Black History Month this year! Follow all of our coverage here. Of course, the content doesn’t end after February. Follow BuzzFeed’s Cocoa Butter on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to keep up with our latest Black culture content year-round!
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