To quote our favorite Friends star and the person we’d most want to be our wing-woman, Jennifer Aniston, women are “complete with or without a mate, with or without a child. We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies. That decision is ours and ours alone. Let’s make that decision for ourselves and for the young women in this world who look to us as examples,” the actress wrote in her 2016 For The Record Op-Ed for The Huffington Post.

For decades, single women were often looked upon with pity. We became spinsters or old maids; nothing better than those stereotypes, nothing in between. Thanks to women like Aniston, and so many others in her company, being a single woman has a completely different connotation now. Women are embracing their life independently from relationships, proving that women can and are completely fulfilled without a mate.

It’s empowering to see women like Aniston, Tracee Ellis Ross, and more use their platforms to flip the script. Women are so much more than the committed romantic relationships we have, and it’s about time the rest of the world saw us that way. We’re offering up kudos to some of our favorite single ladies in the industry, who’ve shown us time and again that fulfillment doesn’t come with who you spend your life with, but how you spend your life. Here’s to the single ladies!

A version of this article was originally published on Dec 2022.

Diane Keaton’s reason for remaining single for so long and never getting married goes all the way back to her mom. “I mentioned watching her get that crowning glory and being Mrs. Highland Park. After that, we moved down to Santa Ana, and it was over,” she told Lisa Kudrow during her Interview profile.

“There was no more trying things out. I feel like she chose family over her dreams. And she was just the best mother, but I think that she is the reason why I didn’t get married. I didn’t want to give up my independence.”

Talking to AARP recently, Keaton added that dating is also out of the picture.“I don’t date,” she told the outlet. “Highly unlikely. I don’t remember anyone calling me, going, ‘This is So-and-So. I’d like to take you out.’ They don’t happen. Of course not.”

Fran Drescher is all about loving herself to the fullest, as she told in a previous 2020 interview with People.”I think that I’ve had to very consciously work on not being codependent, not being fearful of being by myself or doing things by myself. I really had to make a concerted effort to get past that. And I think that I am good with it now,” she said. “But still, I’m not like, ‘I’d rather stay home by myself than go out and do things by myself.’ But then whenever I do do things by myself, I enjoy it.”

The Nanny star added, “And then I think, that hiccup phase where I don’t push myself to do it, until the next time I do. So, I think that that’s been a big hurdle in my life that I needed to conquer. And getting really connected to myself has been a great journey because now, I’m not even feeling like I have to be in a relationship, because I’m in a relationship with myself — and it’s going quite well.”

Sharon Stone made it clear in 2020 that she is “done dating.” The actress opened up about her love life during an apperance on The Drew Barrymore Show.

“I’m done dating. I’ve had it with dating,” she told the eponymous host. “Because I just find people to be insincere and not worth my time. I enjoy my alone time and my time with my kids and friends more,” she said. “I don’t feel like men are at the same place women are right now. I have really good men friends, but I just feel when it comes to emotional maturity in relationships that men and women are seemingly in different spots.”

Teri Hatcher previously told People: “There is a difference between being lonely and being alone,”

She said, “I have been single for a very long time but there is nothing lonely about my life. I want to remove the stigma of that… Many women are not just surviving alone, they’re thriving. They’re empowered, they’re making money, they’re being healthy, they’re traveling. You are allowed to be proud of your life when you’re not part of a couple.”

Drew Barrymore has always been so candid about her personal life. After separating from Will Kopelman in 2016, Barrymore stayed single for roughly six years, focusing on her work, herself, and her two daughters.

“I am just in a completely different place in my life and maybe in the near future I will get into a relationship… but it simply hasn’t been my priority,” Barrymore wrote in an October 2022 blog post. Instead, she wants to focus on the present with her daughters. “However, after two kids and a separation from their father that has made me cautious, I have had the pleasure of shifting my focus when it comes to love for myself and my two daughters,” she writes, adding, “I know that does not include a man nor has it for a while.”

“I never believed the whole ‘I’m happy single’ spiel. I was like, ‘This is totally spiel,'” Emma Watson told British Vogue in April 2022. “It took me a long time, but I’m very happy [being single]. I call it being self-partnered.”

Chelsea Handler is never afraid to break mindsets that people have on single women, because she’ll be the first to tell you that they’re thriving. “Next time you see a single woman,” she started with Time. “Instead of asking her where her boyfriend, husband or eunuch is, congratulate her on her accomplished sense of self and for reaching the solitary mountaintop by herself without a ring on her finger weighing her down like a male paperweight.”

“People keep asking me who I’m dating right now and the truth is … wait for it … no one. And that’s OK. I’m figuring out a lot of stuff right now,” Emilia Clarke said to Instyle in a now-archived interview per E! News. “I think as a woman it’s in our nature to nurture someone else. Sometimes at the expense of ourselves.”

The scrutiny over Jennifer Aniston’s love life has hardly eased over the years. But that didn’t stop the actress from laying it all out there in a 2016 op ed she wrote for Huffington Post, discussing how tired she is of the narrative that she needs to be in a relationship, or have a child.

“Here’s where I come out on this topic: we are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child. We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies. That decision is ours and ours alone. Let’s make that decision for ourselves and for the young women in this world who look to us as examples. Let’s make that decision consciously, outside of the tabloid noise. We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete. We get to determine our own ‘happily ever after’ for ourselves.”

Answering the question all of us were dying to know, The Kardashians star Khloé Kardashian recently gave the most relatable update to her current love life. “Who has time for a man lol I have a 6 month old baby and True and I are sickly codependent on one another,” the mom of two tweeted on Feb 6. “Ha! I secretly love it.”

She continued, “No but for real…. No man right now…. He’s in my prayers too ha!” With or without a man, she’s good!

During a talk at SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show on Jan 25, Pamela Anderson opened up about being single for the first time in a long time (the actress has been married five times). “This last year I’ve been alone, and it’s been a really incredible year for me,” she said, per Hollywood Life. “Just kind of going through, looking back, and reflecting on everything … it’s been good.”

She continued, “You have to be able to be alone too before you can be with somebody else, so I feel like I’m just kind of growing up right now. It’s taken a long time.” Anderson’s most recent marriage, to bodyguard Dan Hayhurst, lasted a year before their January 2022 split. She also has two kids, 26-year-old Brandon and 25-year-old Dylan.

Shonda Rhimes, the creative force behind shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton, and How To Get Away With Murder knows exactly what she wants.”I was seriously dating somebody and I was like, I don’t want to do this,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2015.

“We’re all so conditioned to want it, I felt like there must be something wrong with me. But the minute I said it out loud to my family, it was fantastic. Now if somebody says, ‘Are you looking for that?’ I say, ‘Nope, looking for a boyfriend, not a husband.’ And there’s a freedom to that. There’s no pressure if you’re not looking for it.”

Rhimes is also mom to three daughters.

Oscar-winning actress Allison Janney is completely fine being single. The I, Tonya star opened up about embracing life without a romantic partner during her appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2021. “I really am this time in my life getting to know who I am and what I want. I’d love to eventually find someone to share my life with but if it doesn’t happen, I’ll be just fine,” she said.

Tracee Ellis Ross has been living her best life — sharing photos of herself on the ‘Gram in all her confident, single glory. The actress loves her life as it is, but she’s still open to some romance.

“I am happily single, though that doesn’t mean I am not open to and don’t want a relationship,” she told Shape in 2020. “But in my wonderful and robust experience of being single, I have learned to have a productive relationship with loneliness and an intensely juicy relationship with my joyful solitude — I really enjoy my company.”

Charlize Theron is booked and busy. A mom of two adopted daughters, the Oscar-winning actress can swing from comedy to action, drama, any genre she can do it. When it comes to her romantic life, Theron is open to dating but she feels perfectly fulfilled as a single woman and parent.

“I really do believe that women really … make s–t happen for ourselves,” she told E! News in July 2020. “And I think this idea of relationships, sometimes we approach — or society approaches them in the sense of like, ‘Obviously, that is something that you need and want.’ And that’s really not been the case for me.”

During her chat with Meghan Markle on her podcast Archetypes, Mindy Kaling opened up about being single and how people tend to pity her. News flash: Kaling is super happy with her life, and doesn’t need a man to feel fulfilled.

“They want to set me up with some loser they know,” she told the Duchess of Sussex. “And I’m like, ‘I’m okay. I’m a rich, successful woman with great clothes and a nice family.’” Honestly, what more could a gal want?

Mad Men alum January Jones feels perfectly content with her single status. The mom of son Xander, Jones shared in 2017 that she doesn’t need a partner to feel complete.

“Do I want one? Maybe. But I don’t feel unhappy or lonely,” she told Red Magazine (via People) in 2017. “It would have to be someone so amazing that I would want to make room. Someone who would contribute to my happiness and not take away from it.”