Oprah Winfrey Gives Rare Relationship Update as She Praises Timothée Chalamet for Calling Kylie Jenner His 'Partner'

Oprah Winfrey unexpectedly compared her relationship to Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner’s connection.

During the Tuesday, January 13, episode of TODAY With Jenna & Sheinelle, the entrepreneur, 71, gave a rare update on where she stands with long-term boyfriend Stedman Graham.

Winfrey revealed that she calls her man “partner,” just as Chalamet refers to his girlfriend.

The media personality discussed the actor’s recent Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globes acceptance speeches, where he controversially thanked Jenner as his “partner” rather than “girlfriend.”

“I think that’s fantastic,” Winfrey said of the viral moment. “You know why I like the word, ‘partner?’ Because it’s mature. It says it’s a mature, stable relationship. It’s not just like, ‘My girlfriend.’ You have a girlfriend when you’re seven, when you’re 10, when you’re 15. ‘Partner’ adds a level of maturity and responsibility.”

Co-host Sheinelle Jones agreed: “When a guy says, ‘You’re my partner,’ that means, ‘I’m riding with you. We’re in this.’”

“Yes, we’re in it together. There’s a partnership. It’s really good,” Winfrey concluded.

Jenna Bush Hager then asked Winfrey for an update on her relationship with Graham, whom she said is doing “great.”

“We used the word partner. We’ve always used the word partner….” the 71-year-old recalled. “After 20 years, you can’t say, ‘It’s my boyfriend.’”

“Of course, she started it. Oprah started the word ‘partner,’” Bush Hager joked.

Winfrey has been dating Graham since 1986. The couple never wed and does not share any children.

In 2019, the philanthropist explained her decision to never marry.

“I used to think about this all the time, that I was working these 17-hour days, and so were my producers, and then I go home and I have my two dogs and I have Stedman, who’s letting me be who I need to be in the world,” she said. “He’s never demanding anything from me like, ‘Where’s my breakfast? Where’s my dinner?’ Never any of that, which I believed would have changed had we married.”

Winfrey added at the time, “Both he and I now say, ‘If we had married, we would not be together.’ No question about it — we would not stay married, because of what that would have meant to him, and I would have had my own ideas about it.”