{"id":314232,"date":"2026-02-24T06:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T06:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/314232\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T06:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T06:05:08","slug":"tim-gunn-explains-why-hes-been-celibate-for-43-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/314232\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Gunn explains why he&#8217;s been celibate for 43 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/person\/tim-gunn\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Tim Gunn;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Tim Gunn<\/a> knows what he wants \u2014 and doesn&#8217;t want.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The fashion maven and <a href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/project-runway\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Project Runway;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Project Runway<\/a> alum has been celibate for 43 years, a lifestyle choice he opened up about on a recent episode of the <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/lets-get-married-with-tim-gunn\/id1563085598?i=1000750454851&amp;r=533.46\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Dear Chelsea podcast;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Dear Chelsea podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Joking that the full story would &#8220;keep a psychiatrist very busy,&#8221; Gunn explained that his celibacy stems from &#8220;a very serious nine-year relationship in Washington, D.C.,&#8221; that he had from the mid-1970s into the early &#8217;80s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I loved this person deeply and would have done anything for him, and I still remember the night that it all ended. We were in bed watching M*A*S*H. It was the first run, and he said to me, &#8216;I have no patience for you any longer. I want you to leave,'&#8221; Gunn recalled. &#8220;I had my own apartment, but I had been living with him for years. And I left. I drove to my apartment on Rock Creek Parkway. And I had to pull off, because I was hyperventilating. I was beside myself with self-flagellation and self-pity, and it was awful.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Tim Gunn on 'Project Runway' Virginia Sherwood\/Bravo\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/e3ad4a1849f21161223f8dd8be7d48ed.jpeg\"\/>Tim Gunn on &#8216;Project Runway&#8217; <\/p>\n<p>Virginia Sherwood\/Bravo<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But more factored into Gunn&#8217;s decision to remove himself entirely from the dating market than mere heartbreak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;One of the things that he told me that night was that he had been sleeping with just about everything that walked by,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;I had been loyal and faithful to him. He was the only person I had ever been with, and this is the advent of AIDS. It&#8217;s 1982.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">According to Gunn, the initial &#8220;self-pity&#8221; he felt transformed, due to the social context, into &#8220;completely unbridled anger, because I thought he may have given me a death sentence. I was tested every six months for 10 years for HIV, and thankfully, I had a clean slate.&#8221; But when it came to future sexual and romantic pursuits, &#8220;all this would come back like Niagara Falls, and it would just take the desire away.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Dear Chelsea host Chelsea Handler joked that she and Gunn were true &#8220;kindred spirits,&#8221; as she <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.com\/Entertainment\/chelsea-handler-reveals-shes-marrying-kind\/story?id=22880312\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:doesn&#039;t plan on getting married;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">doesn&#8217;t plan on getting married<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Imagine the funds we could co-mingle,&#8221; Handler exclaimed, imagining the two of them as roommates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But Gunn said that while &#8220;being celibate and being someone who lives alone was a bit of an adjustment,&#8221; now decades into it, he &#8220;wouldn&#8217;t have it any other way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/ew-dispatch-newsletter-11812417\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:EW Dispatch newsletter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">EW Dispatch newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Gunn is in good company in the Hollywood celibacy club. Lenny Kravitz revealed in 2024 that he hadn&#8217;t been in a serious relationship in nine years, and while he waits for the right person, <a href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/lenny-kravitz-says-he-has-been-celibate-for-9-years-8656210\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:he&#039;s remaining celibate;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">he&#8217;s remaining celibate<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a spiritual thing,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;I have become very set in my ways, in the way I live.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">You can listen to Gunn&#8217;s full interview on Dear Chelsea above.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Read the original article on <a href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/tim-gunn-explains-why-he-has-been-celibate-for-43-years-11912559\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Entertainment Weekly;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Entertainment Weekly<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim Gunn knows what he wants \u2014 and doesn&#8217;t want. The fashion maven and Project Runway alum has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,146845,93,61,60,60324,146844],"class_list":{"0":"post-314232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-dear-chelsea","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-project-runway","14":"tag-tim-gunn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}