Love is a many-splendored thing, especially when you’re gawking at it from the outside. In this column, we’ll be examining the celebrity couples that give us hope for our own romantic futures and trying to learn what we can from their well-documented bonds.
I know that we, as a culture, are past the “misandry is inherently funny and cool” era in which all of our aunts got us mugs that said MALE TEARS on them for Christmas. But may I posit that we…bring it back, just a tiny bit? I’m not saying all men are terrible, but one remnant of my compulsory undergraduate feminism that I stand behind is the fantasy of a cishet male partner who is primarily seen and not heard. A perfect example? Oprah Winfrey’s longtime paramour, Stedman Graham.
Winfrey and Graham have been together since 1986, but they made headlines this week for appearing in public together for the first time in seven years at an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Seven years! Insane! In other words, the amount of time since we last saw Winfrey and Graham out in the world together is longer than any romantic relationship I’ve ever had! (Oh, God, is that sad?)
Winfrey and Graham, a businessman and author, first met at a charity event, and though they were briefly engaged in the 1990s, they never tied the knot. The two don’t talk about each other publicly much, but Graham described himself as being “dedicated to [Winfrey’s] happiness” during a 2019 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “I want her to be the best she can possibly be and she’s done a pretty good job of doing that, and so for me, I’ve been able to find my own happiness, my own skills, my own talents, my own abilities and I’m satisfied with that. I’m happy with that.”
Winfrey, for her part, has spoken out about how choosing not to get married to Graham may just be the secret to the longevity of their relationship. Describing their bond as a “spiritual partnership,” she wrote of the couple’s called-off engagement: “I realized I didn’t actually want a marriage. I wanted to be asked. I wanted to know he felt I was worthy of being his missus, but I didn’t want the sacrifices, the compromises, the day-in-day-out commitment required to make a marriage work. My life with the show was my priority, and we both knew it.”
I’m fascinated by the concept of one of the most famous women in the world having such a private romantic relationship, but it makes a certain kind of sense. If you spent most of your career crafting your image as one of America’s most accessible and beloved public figures, wouldn’t you also want to conduct your dating life with some semblance of privacy? Furthermore, in a culture that still encourages women to prioritize their romantic relationships over their careers, there is still something subtly radical about Winfrey’s commitment to her own professional growth—and the quiet yet clear enjoyment Stedman takes in her success.
