Oprah Winfrey Explains Why She Decided Not to Get Married or Have Kids

Oprah Winfrey doesn’t have any regrets with how she lived her life.

The 65-year-old mogul opened up with People Magazine about not getting married and not having children.

Oprah, who met longtime love Stedman Graham at a charity event in 1968, revealed that she did think about becoming a mother once she and Stedman became engaged.

“At one point in Chicago I had bought an additional apartment because I was thinking, ‘Well, if we get married, I’m going to need room for children,’” Oprah shared before admitting she saw “the depth of responsibility and sacrifice that is actually required to be a mother” while working on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

“I realized, ‘Whoa, I’m talking to a lot of messed-up people, and they are messed up because they had mothers and fathers who were not aware of how serious that job is,’” Oprah said. “I don’t have the ability to compartmentalize the way I see other women do. It is why, throughout my years, I have had the highest regard for women who choose to be at home [with] their kids, because I don’t know how you do that all day long. Nobody gives women the credit they deserve.”

She continued: “I used to think about this all the time, that I was working these 17-hour days, and so were my producers, and then I go home and I have my two dogs and I have Stedman, who’s letting me be who I need to be in the world. He’s never demanding anything from me like, ‘Where’s my breakfast? Where’s my dinner?’ Never any of that, which I believed would have changed had we married.”

Oprah then admitted that she doesn’t think she and Stedman would still be together today if they decided to get married.

“No question about it — we would not stay married, because of what that would have meant to him, and I would have had my own ideas about it,” Oprah continued. “I have not had one regret about that. I also believe that part of the reason why I don’t have regrets is because I got to fulfill it in the way that was best for me: the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.Those girls fill that maternal fold that I perhaps would have had. In fact, they overfill — I’m overflowed with maternal.”