Two of the most influential voices in Hollywood are opening up about a touchy conversation for a lot of single women: marriage.
Oprah Winfrey and Shonda Rhimes sat down on OWN’s Supersoul Sunday to discuss the stigmas attached to their public decisions not to marry.
“Since I was 5, I could tell you I was going to have kids,” Rhimes said. “I could tell you I was going to have three. I could tell you they were going to be girls. But I have never wanted to get married. I never played bride. I was never interested. I don’t know what it is; I never wanted to get married.”
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Oprah, who has been in a relationship with Stedman Graham since 1986, shared the sentiment, though she admitted that she once wanted to take the plunge.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever said this publicly, but I really wanted to be married, too,” Winfrey said. “I wanted Stedman to want to marry me. The moment he asked me to marry him [in 1993], I was like, ‘Now I actually have to get married?'”
Winfrey never regrets her decision not to wed, adding that if she had married Stedman, her life would have taken a different course—one she isn’t sure she wanted.
Rhimes echoed her feelings, saying that between producing seven shows, she stands by her decision.
“I have so much going on inside my head in teems of writing,” Rhimes said. “There’s such a large space in my life taken up by that. I can’t imagine it being taken up by a husband and children and writing and everything getting its due. I don’t believe there is room for all of it. I really don’t.”