Tim Gunn isn’t afraid to get candid about his private life, including his much-discussed commitment to celibacy.

Appearing on Monday’s episode of Chelsea Handler’s “Dear Chelsea” podcast, the former “Project Runway” mentor shared that he’s been celibate for a total of 43 years after having his heart broken by an unfaithful ex in 1982.

“I had a very serious nine-year relationship in Washington, D.C.,” Gunn said. “I loved this person deeply and would have done anything for him.”

The 72-year-old went on to recall “the night that it all ended,” including a brutal conversation that began as the two men were in bed, watching an episode of “M*A*S*H” together.

“He said to me, ‘I have no patience for you any longer. I want you to leave,’” he explained. “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.”

Gunn didn’t reveal the identity of his ex, other than to note he’d been a co-worker at the time, meaning that they were bound to see each other again.

“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 said. “He was the only person I’d ever been with.”

Gunn’s split took place at the advent of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and his newfound knowledge of his ex’s sexual history soon had him filled with “unbridled anger.”

“I thought he may have given me a death sentence,” he said. And though he never tested positive for HIV, the experience seemingly turned him off to pursuing new relationships: “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.”

Gunn, who recently re-teamed with fellow “Project Runway” alum Heidi Klum on the Amazon Prime Video series “Making the Cut,” addressed his celibacy in his 2010 book, “Gunn’s Golden Rules,” and stressed it was a conscious lifestyle decision.

“Do I feel like less of a person because of it? No, not even remotely,” he said on a 2012 episode of ABC’s “The Revolution,” a now-defunct health and lifestyle program. “It’s not as though I’m some barren forest.”

Other celebrities who have recently opened up about choosing a celibate lifestyle include musician Lenny Kravitz, who said in 2024 he hadn’t had sex in nine years, and actor Julia Fox, who cited the Supreme Court’s 2022 rollback of abortion rights as her motivation to abstain. As for her sex life with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, during their high-profile 2022 romance, Fox would later tell The New York Times there “wasn’t any.”

Elsewhere in his “Dear Chelsea” chat, Gunn admitted that being celibate and living alone “was a bit of an adjustment,” but he “wouldn’t have it any other way.” In fact, he now believes his lifestyle prepared him for the long period of self-isolation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.

“I’m probably one of the few people who really loved it,” he quipped.

Listen to Tim Gunn’s “Dear Chelsea” interview here. His comments about his celibacy begin around the 8:09 mark.

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