Whoopi Goldberg Got Real About Her Three Marriages: "It Wasn't For Me"

Photo credit: Larry Busacca - Getty Images
Photo credit: Larry Busacca - Getty Images

From Oprah Magazine

  • Whoopi Goldberg has opened up about her attitude towards marriage, admitting that she walked down the aisle mainly because it was expected of her.

  • "I tried marriage, and it wasn't for me," Goldberg told The New York Times, explaining that she is now confident enough to know she doesn't have to conform.

  • Goldberg has been married three times, most recently to actor Lyle Trachtenberg. The couple divorced in 1995.


Whoopi Goldberg just gave a candid and pretty inspiring interview about her attitude towards marriage, and spoke out about the societal pressure on women to settle down.

"Look, people expect you to have a boyfriend," Goldberg told the New York Times, after she was asked about the role she felt she had played within her marriages. "They expect you to get married. So I kept trying to do that, but I didn’t want to share information with somebody else. I didn’t want anybody asking me why I was doing what I was doing, or to have to make the other person feel better. But if you’re in a relationship, you have to do those things, and it took me a while to figure out that I didn’t want to."

Goldberg has been married three times. Her first marriage to Alvin Martin ended in divorce in 1979. The couple has one daughter together, Alex Martin, 46. She married cinematographer David Claessen in 1986, and the couple divorced two years later. And her last marriage, to actor Lyle Trachtenberg, began in October 1994, and ended in divorce the following year.

Photo credit: Ron Davis - Getty Images
Photo credit: Ron Davis - Getty Images

"I'd be thinking, why don’t I feel the thing that I’m supposed to?" Goldberg continued in the Times interview. "Then one day I thought: I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to conform. I tried marriage, and it wasn’t for me. You can’t be in a marriage because everybody’s expecting you to."

Goldberg's comments echoed those she made previously, also to the Times, in 2016. "I’m much happier on my own," she said. "I can spend as much time with somebody as I want to spend, but I’m not looking to be with somebody forever or live with someone. I don’t want somebody in my house.”

Honestly, this is extremely relatable content whether you're single or not!


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