Shonda Rhimes never wanted marriage, knew she wanted kids: awesome?
TV megaproducer Shonda Rhimes, 45, is at a point in her life where she’s doing whatever the hell she wants, telling it how it is and not letting fear or self-perceived weaknesses hold her back. She’s promoting her new memoir, Year of Yes, in which she describes how she decided to get out of her own way and just do the things she’s avoided up until now. She lost over 100 pounds in a year, challenged herself and came out the other side even more impressive than she already was.
The last we reported on Shonda we learned that despite her successful career she’s always feared live interviews. She described in her book how she forced herself to go on Jimmy Kimmel, “didn’t die,” and got it over with. In a new interview with Oprah, Shonda, a single mom who admits she has nannies, explained how she knew that she wanted kids early on and how she also knew she didn’t want to get married. Here’s some of what she told Oprah. Oh and Oprah totally related to the “not getting married” thing because she’s richer than God.
“I was able to finally stand up and say, ‘I don’t want to get married.’ At all,” Rhimes, 45, told Winfrey during an episode of SuperSoul Sunday. “I said that out loud. I said it to my family. I said it to my friends. I said it to anybody who asked. It’s never been a dream of mine…
“It’s a lot like the desire to want to have children in our society. You’re supposed to want it, and if you don’t want it, what’s wrong with you?”
While she makes the comparison, Rhimes also points out that she’s always known she wanted children, but never felt that way about getting married.
“I’m one of those people, since I was 5, I could tell you I was going to have kids. I could tell you I was going to have three. I could tell you they were going to be girls,” she added. “But I have never wanted to get married. I never played bride. I was never interested. I don’t know what it is; I never wanted to get married.”
Not so surprisingly, Winfrey, 61, shared the same sentiments as the mother-of-three.
“The moment [Stedman] asked me to marry him, I was like ‘Oh, God! Now I actually have to get married?'” Oprah said about the wedding that she and Graham agreed to postpone, but never spoke about again. “But what I realized is, I don’t want to be married.
“Because I could not have the life that I created for myself. I couldn’t do it.”
Rhimes agreed with Winfrey, adding that admitting their lack of desire for marriage out loud provides some sort of freedom from what she felt was “a dirty little secret.”
“It was really freeing to say it out loud,” Rhimes said.
Without getting too personal, I wish I had this kind of insight from a young age. I never realized it was an option to have kids without getting married, it just never occurred to me. Many women learn that marriage isn’t for them only through experience. It’s rare to hear someone nope out before they even try it, and I kind of love that about Shonda. Plus she wanted kids! I just bought Shonda’s book so prepare to hear me gush about her more in the future. (Unless her book sucks, but it’s the best selling self help book on Amazon now and has mostly five star reviews so I doubt that’s the case.) I’m not a huge fan of her shows, I thought Scandal was only good for the first two seasons and I could not get into How To Get Away With Murder, but I just enjoy her interviews a lot.
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