Project Runway alum Tim Gunn revealed that heartbreak led him to become celibate for the last 43 years.
The fashion consultant, Tim Gunn, 72, recalled how a cheating ex-boyfriend drove him to abstain from sex at the age of 29, while appearing on Chelsea Handler’s podcast on Thursday.
Tim Gunn thought he was handed a ‘death sentence’ when he discovered his longtime partner – the only person he had ever been with – was unfaithful during the early days of the AIDS crisis.
‘I had a very serious nine-year relationship in Washington, DC, and I loved this person deeply and would have done anything for him,’ he said.
‘And I still remember the night that it all ended. We were in bed watching M*A*S*H… and he said to me, “I have no patience for you any longer. I want you to leave.”‘
‘I had my own apartment, but I had been living with him for years, and I left. I had to pull off because I was hyperventilating. I was beside myself with self-flagellation and self-pity, and it was awful.’
‘And this is someone I worked with, so it wasn’t as though I just would never see him again. And one of the things that he told me that night was that he’d been sleeping with just about everything that walked by, and I had been loyal and faithful to him,’ Gunn went on.
‘He was the only person I’d ever been with. And this is the advent of AIDS. It’s 1982. The self-pity then turned to completely unbridled anger because I thought he may have given me a death sentence.’
Tim Gunn added that he ‘was tested every six months for ten years for HIV and thankfully I had a clean slate.’
However, the experience marred any chance of future sexual intimacy for Gunn.
‘Whenever I was even tempted to engage in something that could become serious with someone, all this would come back like Niagara Falls, and it would just take the desire away.’
‘And I have to say, being celibate and being someone who lives alone was a bit of an adjustment. But now I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ he concluded.
Tim Gunn rose to fame in 2004 when he joined Project Runway, hosted by supermodel Heidi Klum, serving as mentor to aspiring designers and gaining recognition for his calm, supportive manner and iconic catchphrase, ‘Make it work.’
During Thursday’s podcast, Gunn revealed he is no longer part of the show because producers did not ask him to return.
‘I’ll be perfectly transparent about it. I wasn’t invited to the party,’ he said.
‘My agent called the producers to say, “We understand Heidi signed up. We haven’t heard a thing about Tim.” And they said “We don’t want him.”‘
Gunn said the news was ‘devastating’ at first. ‘But, as I said earlier, things happen for a reason. And I feel extremely lucky to have had 19 seasons of the show. 16 with Heidi. And I have a beautiful Emmy sitting on my kitchen counter. So, no complaints,’ he added.
Last year, the show was renewed for season 22, which is set to debut in 2026.
Gunn was a long-time faculty member at Parsons School of Design from 1982 to 2007, leading the fashion design department from 2000 to 2007, before moving to Liz Claiborne as chief creative officer.
His popularity on Project Runway led to two spin-off series, Bravo’s Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style and Lifetime’s Under the Gunn.