Whoopi Goldberg Says Marriage Is ‘Not’ For Her
In a candid interview on the May 10 episode of Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? on MAX, Whoopi Goldberg shared her personal views on marriage, revealing that she’s had enough of it. Promoting her new memoir Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me, the 68-year-old EGOT winner expressed her current disinterest in the institution, which she explored through three past marriages.
Asked whether she does not wish to ‘share” in a marriage, she responded, “No, I don’t.”
She humorously added, “I don’t care how you feel. It’s terrible. You know, when you’re married to somebody, you have to be invested in how they’re feeling. I am not.”
Whoopi explained that her energy is focused elsewhere. “I’m invested in my kid. I’m invested in her kids. I’m invested in my son in law. I’m invested in my friends. But I’m not invested in a relationship that would require as much as having a child requires and I know that that’s not for me,” she stated.
Reflecting on her marriages, Whoopi detailed her unions with Alvin Martin, whom she divorced in 1979 after sharing a daughter, Alexandrea; cinematographer David Claessen, whom she divorced two years after their 1986 wedding; and Lyle Trachtenberg, from whom she separated a year into their 1994 marriage.
While Whoopi has long expressed her indifference toward marriage, she also shared her view on relationships more broadly, noting she’s not opposed to casual encounters. “I know you’re not supposed to say that but I think you must say it because not everybody is meant to be married. But many people enjoy, you know, sex. So sometimes a little hit and run is not bad,” she quipped.
In her reflections, Whoopi revealed that her past attempts at marriage were driven by a desire for normalcy rather than true love.
“I wanted to feel normal and it seemed to me that if I was married, I would have a more normal life. But clearly that’s not the case, that’s not a good reason to get married. You have to actually want a life with someone through ups and downs, and I just discovered that wasn’t for me,” she disclosed during a 2011 interview with Piers Morgan.
At the time, the actress and TV host also shared that she had fallen in love once, even though she refused to clarify who it was.
“What I know now is I don’t want to live with anyone. I think I tried it with probably the right guys for other people. It wasn’t them; it was me. I actually like living on my own,” she said to CNN.
