Oprah and Stedman Graham: What Critics Get Wrong About Their Love

After 40 years together, Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham’s haters believe they likely regret not taking the time to make their relationship legal. To some, a relationship of this longevity without official commitment is illogical. “Why are they still together? That is very bad,” an X user argued in 2018. But they would be wrong. Oprah and Stedman consciously decided not to get married many years ago — and never changed their minds. And they firmly believe their decision is the main secret to their long-lasting partnership.

Oprah Winfrey and Stedman Graham have even suggested that marriage might have ended their relationship rather than strengthened it. To Oprah, marriage carries traditional expectations that would not have suited the life they built together. “His interpretation of what it means to be a husband and what it would mean for me to be a wife would have been pretty traditional, and I would not have been able to fit into that,” she told Vogue in 2017. Looking back, she believes marriage could have forced her to choose between being a wife and pursuing her career.

Their decision to avoid conventional labels allowed them to escape many of the assumptions attached to marriage. “He’s a traditional man and this is a very untraditional relationship,” Oprah explained during a 2013 interview with Access Hollywood, as reported by the New York Post. She added that becoming a wife would likely bring expectations about how she should behave and what responsibilities she should take on. By preserving the unconventional nature of their partnership, Oprah was able to maintain both her decades-long relationship and her extraordinary career—a balance that has clearly worked for her.

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Oprah has said she never regretted not marrying or becoming a mother, insisting that an unconventional life ultimately suited her. Still, she once wrestled with the idea of marriage. She and Stedman became engaged in the early 1990s, after Oprah realized she wanted him to want marriage as much as she did. “I really wanted to be wanted to be married to,” she said during a conversation with Shonda Rhimes on OWN’s “SuperSoul Sunday,” according to HuffPost. The couple agreed to marry in 1993.

Yet the engagement quickly prompted second thoughts. Oprah remembered wondering whether accepting Stedman’s proposal meant she was truly ready to become his wife. When the planned wedding conflicted with a book deal she had recently signed, Stedman suggested putting the ceremony on hold. That pause eventually became permanent, and the subject was never revisited. “What I realized is, I don’t want to be married,” Oprah later said. “Because I could not have the life that I created for myself.”

A similar question resurfaced in 2013 after Tina Turner married Erwin Bach. Turner and Bach had spent 37 years together before marrying, following a relationship path that closely resembled Oprah and Stedman’s. Turner’s decision briefly made Oprah reconsider her own choice. “Tina was like, ‘Oprah, you need to do this. You need to do it,’” she recalled in the Access Hollywood interview. But after thinking about whether a wedding would truly change their relationship, Oprah reached the same conclusion: “Well, OK, would things really be different?” she said. “And no, I don’t think so.”