Even though Oprah Winfrey and her boyfriend Stedman Graham have been together 31 years, the media mogul hasn’t ever wanted to get married, explaining in a new interview with Vogue that she didn’t think she’d be able to fit into the “traditional” mold of what it means to be a wife.
Oprah opened up to Vogue about her decision to never tie the knot with her longtime partner, saying that staying unmarried has taught her to “live life on your own terms.” She said the topic of marriage actually only came up one time during her entire relationship with Graham: “Nobody believes it, but it’s true. The only time I brought it up was when I said to Stedman, ‘What would have happened if we had actually gotten married?’ And the answer is: ‘We wouldn’t be together.’”
The former talk-show host went on to explain, “We would not have stayed together, because marriage requires a different way of being in this world. His interpretation of what it means to be a husband and what it would mean for me to be a wife would have been pretty traditional, and I would not have been able to fit into that.”
Yet, despite her desire to steer clear of marriage, Oprah has found herself in the middle of several wedding rumors over the years, “Page Six” notes. Last September, she dispelled one of the rumors on Twitter, writing “6 people who know me well have called today congratulating me or surprised they weren’t invited to my wedding.”