Tim Gunn Opens Up About 43-Year Celibacy & Not Being Asked Back to ‘Project Runway’

Former Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn has opened up about how a devastating breakup led to him being celibate for 43 years.

The 72-year-old television personality appeared on the latest episode of Chelsea Handler‘s Dear Chelsea podcast, where he admitted that the feelings attached to the separation had prevented him from engaging physically with anyone whenever something became serious.

“I had a very serious nine-year relationship in Washington, D.C., and I loved this person deeply and would have done anything for him,” Gunn said, per Us Weekly. “And I still remember the night that it all ended. We were in bed watching M*A*S*H… he said to me, ‘I have no patience for you any longer. I want you to leave.'”

Gunn said he had his own apartment at the time but had been living with his partner for years. On the drive home, he revealed he had to pull over because he was “hyperventilating… I was beside myself with self-flagellation and self-pity, and it was awful.”

What made the situation worse was that Gunn and his ex-partner worked together. Gunn served as an on-air mentor and executive producer on Project Runway from 2004 to 2017. Before that, he worked as director of admissions at Corcoran College of Art and Design and later as a faculty member at Parsons School of Design in Greenwich Village, New York.

“So it wasn’t as though I just would never see him again,” Gunn shared. “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. He was the only person I’d ever been with.”

Gunn said the “self-pity” later turned into “completely unbridled anger” as he feared his ex-partner may have given him HIV. “I was tested every six months for ten years for HIV, and thankfully, I had a clean slate,” he stated. “But 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.”

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As for being celibate for over four decades, Gunn said, “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.”

Gunn, who produces and stars alongside former Project Runway host Heidi Klum on the reality series Making the Cut, was not involved in the 2025 reboot of the fashion design show.

He told Handler that he “wasn’t invited to return to the party,” noting how the rejection was “devastating at first.” However, he said, “Things happen for a reason,” and he’s grateful for his experience on the show.

“I feel extremely lucky to have had 19 seasons of the show, 16 with Heidi,” he explained. “[I have] no complaints. I feel very, very, very lucky.”