Whoopi Goldberg: ‘I’m not good at relationships’—but she’s wildly successful. Here’s why that matters.

Whoopi Goldberg has been a household name since she starred in The Color Purple in 1985. Fast forward over 50 years, and she’s still as driven as ever. Goldberg, 70, cohosts daytime talk show The View. In 2024, she founded AWSN, the All Women’s Sports Network. She’s also an author, activist, mother, and grandmother. 

And, she’s also doing it all solo. Goldberg is happily single and has been for decades. She says that will never change.

In a recent interview with Interview magazine, Goldberg opened up about her solo life, which she happens to genuinely love. So much, in fact, that she says she plans to stay single because, as she put it, “in the last 25 years, I recognized that not everybody’s cut out to be in a relationship.” She continued, revealing that she doesn’t ever “want to live with anybody,” echoing her 2016 statement to The New York Times when she famously said “I don’t want somebody in my house!”

A growing trend

While we don’t hear women talking about how glad they are to be single all that often, the tide seems to be turning. More women are deciding to stay single, and studies suggest that trend will continue. 

A 2019 Morgan Stanley study, based on Census Bureau historical data and Morgan Stanley forecasts, found that 45% of prime working-age women (ages 25-44) will be single by 2030. That’s the largest share in history.

That’s why hearing Goldberg’s perspective, and witnessing her joy and continued drive, is refreshing. 

It’s also more relevant than ever as some women feel unbothered by not being in a relationship, regardless of the fact that society has long pushed women toward marriage and motherhood.

Are single women more ambitious?

Surely there are plenty of ambitious people in long-term relationships that manage to balance both. 

However, Goldberg’s view that that doesn’t work for her, is important to hear. Because, quite simply, no matter what lens you’re looking from, relationships are work, too—and sometimes, they can steal your energy and your ambition. 

Likewise, some research has shown that those single women are powerful forces at work. A 2023 Wells Fargo study found that women who aren’t married are becoming an increasingly influential part of the workforce.

Despite not living with a partner, Goldberg isn’t lonely, she says. Perhaps because she keeps astoundingly busy. 

“I’m not good at [romantic] relationships because you have to think about other people, and I have enough to think about with my daughter and her husband and my grandkids and my great-grandkids and all the people at work.”

Some might call it selfish. But, as Goldberg put it way back in 2016, she’s simply “a woman who knows what she wants.” What she wants just happens to be “a home all to her damn self.”