Tim Gunn Shares The Reason For His Many years-Long Celibacy

Fashion guru and TV personality Tim Gunn is opening up a couple of personal aspect of his life. The previous “Project Runway” fashion mentor recently shared the explanations behind his decades-long celibacy, reflecting on his experiences and convictions behind the choice.

In an episode of Chelsea Handler’s podcast, “Dear Chelsea,” Gunn candidly shared a couple of past relationship that affected his alternative to be celibate.

Within the early ’80s, Gunn’s nine-year relationship together with his partner abruptly ended. He described the connection as “very serious,” adding that he would have done anything for the person.

He vividly recalled the night of their break-up, telling Handler that he was in bed watching the TV show “M*A*S*H*” when his partner said, “I even have no patience for you any longer. I would like you to depart.”

Based on Gunn, his partner also confessed that he had been “sleeping with nearly every little thing that walked by,” which added to the heartbreak. “I used to be hyperventilating. I used to be beside myself with self-flagellation and self-pity, and it was awful,” Gunn shared.

After grieving the connection, Gunn’s initial self-pity gave solution to anger over the implications of his partner’s confession. “He was the one person I’d ever been with. And that is the arrival of AIDS. It’s 1982,” he shared.

The AIDS epidemic began in 1981, when the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported cases of infections amongst previously healthy individuals. The cases increased, and AIDS quickly became a worldwide health crisis, causing widespread fear and stigma. Treatment options were also limited back then.

“I believed he could have given me a death sentence,” Gunn explained, adding that he got routinely tested for HIV every six months for a decade after the break-up. Fortunately, his results got here back negative.

Nevertheless, the cheating affected Gunn deeply, and any thoughts of intimacy brought him back to the pain of that have. As a substitute, he selected to be celibate, a choice he has maintained for 43 years now. It was an adjustment at first, but now, Gunn says he “would not have it another way.”

It wasn’t until 10 years after the break-up that Gunn decided to take a likelihood on love once more, per Newsweek. In 1992, he met a flight attendant named Daniel. They’d been dating for about a month when Gunn told his close friend concerning the recent relationship.

His friend, nonetheless, wasn’t as enthusiastic about it as Gunn was. He said it was such a cliché for Gunn to be dating a flight attendant, describing it as a “gay stereotype.” Gunn was caught between a strong-headed friend and Daniel, and in the long run, he selected his friend.

He hurt Daniel and himself in the method and grew to resent his friend, ending their friendship eventually. “This remains to be something I take into consideration with a very good deal of frequency. The irony is I ended up with nobody,” Gunn said of the situation.

Gunn, who was born in 1953, has been open about his struggles with sexuality early on in his life. “I didn’t know who I used to be, but I actually knew what I wasn’t. And I knew I wasn’t a heterosexual male. The entire idea of being gay absolutely terrified me,” he told HuffPost in 2017.

Based on Gunn, growing up was tough, and he was often picked on due to his stutter. The despair led him to ingest “100 pills” in an attempt to finish his life at 17 years old.

Gunn, though initially in denial, had his first experience with a person at 22 years old, but didn’t come out to his family. He only revealed his sexuality to his sister at 29 years old, after he had broken up together with his long-time partner.

Gunn graduated from the Corcoran College of Art and Design and worked for Parsons School of Design as an associate dean, eventually becoming the department chair of the Fashion Design Department from 2000 to 2007. In 2004, he joined “Project Runway” because the designers’ mentor, a stint that lasted 14 years until season 16.

Each he and host Heidi Klum left the show together, and in 2025, Klum returned because the host for season 21. Many fans wondered why he didn’t come back, and the style guru addressed it by saying, “I wasn’t invited to return to the party.”

Although dissatisfied at first, Gunn says that every little thing happens for a reason. “I do not know what the rationale is yet, but it can be revealed.”