Cohabitating has been no bed of roses for Kaley Cuoco and her fiancé, Tom Pelphrey.
So much so that the “Big Bang Theory” alum admitted to Dax Shepard on his “Armchair Expert” podcast Monday that she and the “Ozark” actor sleep in different rooms.
Tom Pelphrey and Kaley Cuoco at the New York premiere of HBO’s “Task” in September 2025.
Kristina Bumphrey via Getty Images
The subject came up about 55 minutes into the episode, while Cuoco and Shepard were commiserating about how their rescue dogs have taken over their homes. The “Flight Attendant” star admitted that her numerous dogs, along with their 2-year-old daughter Matilda, sleep in her bed at night — which created a situation that made it ruff for Pelphrey to get any shut-eye.
Cuoco said Pelphrey eventually hit his limit after one of their senior dogs began “barking at 3 a.m. at the wall” for no apparent reason.
“He was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ And I’m like, ‘I understand.’ So he started sleeping in the guest room,” Cuoco said.
Cuoco and Pelphrey attend the Los Angeles premiere of “Love & Death” in 2023.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin via Getty Images
“Which, by the way … game changer,” Cuoco said in an excited whisper.
She went on to explain that the “Task” star is a “night owl” and tends to go to bed very late, while she tends to keep the same sleeping schedule as their daughter.
“He writes at night. He reads, it’s his quiet time,” Cuoco said of her fiancé. “So he’s up late and wakes up late on a non-working day. We established this from day one. I go to bed early, and I wake up early.”
Although Cuoco said she felt like she was ‘“walking on eggshells” in the mornings when she woke up early while Pelphrey was still asleep, she admitted that when he finally suggested in a couples’ therapy session that they make sleeping in different rooms a permanent thing, she freaked out a bit.
“So he brings us up. At first, I’m like, ‘What will people think?’ And he’s like, ‘I never see you at night.’ I don’t see him. It’s not our sexy time. We don’t cuddle. Yeah. We don’t see each other at night,” Cuoco said. “He goes, ‘Why do you care?’ And I sat there and I went, ‘God, I don’t care.’ And he goes, ‘Let’s try it.’ ”
Cuoco called their new sleeping arrangement the “best decision we ever made,” adding, “It works great for us. We’re, like, so much happier.”
Sleeping in different rooms is viewed by many as a romantic taboo, with some believing it indicates larger issues in a relationship. But Phyllis Zee, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, told HuffPost in 2016 that sleeping next to your partner is not the only way to retain an emotional connection.
“Getting good quality sleep is important for relationships ― bed-sharing or not,” she said. “It’s a personal decision, not necessarily a sign of marital problems.”