Whoopi Goldberg on Why Marriage Doesn’t Work For Her: ‘Whoever Comes Into My Life Is Never Going to Be No. 1’

For the past nearly 25 years, Whoopi Goldberg has been enjoying her life as a single, independent woman. The beloved The View host paid a visit to RuPaul’s DragCon 2019 in New York City over the weekend and opened up about three failed relationships — and dished why she thinks marriage will never work for her.

“Whoever comes into my life is never going to be No. 1,” the 63-year-old unapologetically admitted during a panel discussion on Sunday, September 8. “The kid is No. 1,” she said, referring to her 46-year-old daughter, Alex Martin. “Always. And I could never explain that to anyone … That’s my priority, that’s the person I need to pay attention to.”

Whoopi even added that her daughter is not the only one she’s looking after. “And you might be second or third,” she teased with the audience before realizing any romantic relationship would be less of a priority. “You know, I’ve got grandkids, I’ve got great-grandkids. So you’re probably going to be ninth now.”

Although she was previously married to Alvin Martin from 1973 and 1979, David Claessen from 1986 to 1988 and Lyle Trachtenberg from 1994 to 1995, the Sister Act star told RuPaul that none of her relationships came close to working out in the long run.

“In those days, you were supposed to get married. I never liked it … because I knew it wasn’t something I agreed with,” Whoopi explained. “Because I didn’t feel I knew enough about me to include someone else to know any more about me. And then have them think they knew more about me than I knew about me. So I was never good at it.”

The Plum Fantastic author’s heartbreaking admission comes just two months after she initially got candid about her marriage woes. In a July interview with The New York Times, Whoopi opened up about her broken marriages and confessed that settling down was never really part of her plan.

“Look, people expect you to have a boyfriend. They expect you to get married,” she explained to the publication. “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.”

Whoopi attempted some trial and error but, after three divorces, she felt like she was the “the common denominator.” “I’d be thinking, Why don’t I feel the thing that I’m supposed to?” she proposed. “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.”

We love Whoopi for following her heart!