Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly: 10 famous couples with unconventional sleeping arrangements — Bette Midler
By Louis Peitzman
August 5, 2026
Whoopi Goldberg said it best: “I don’t want somebody in my house.”
“I don’t want somebody in my house,” Whoopi Goldberg famously said when asked about her love life in a 2016 interview.
It’s a sentiment many of us relate to at times. Additionally, for many couples, however, cohabitation is part of the bargain and brings perks. There are options for those who value space, bette midler.
In a 2023 appearance on the podcast Lipstick on the Rim, Cameron Diaz spoke out in favor of unconventional living arrangements. “We should normalize separate bedrooms,” she said. “To me, I would literally — I have my house, you have yours. We have the family house in the middle. I will go and sleep in my room. You go sleep in your room. I’m fine.”
Diaz was quick to clarify that she and husband Benji Madden don’t subscribe to her own guidance, but there are plenty of stars who have spoken openly about keeping some nocturnal distance from their spouse.
Entertainment Weekly has gathered some of the most notable examples — and let the stars explain for themselves. Read on to learn about 10 celebrity couples who don’t sleep in the same bed.
Kaley Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey
For two working actors like Kaley Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey, finding time to connect can be a challenge. But sleep is also important — and Pelphrey discovered that he was struggling to get any rest amid conflicting schedules, rescue dogs, and their 2-year-old daughter, Matilda. That led the engaged couple to sleep in separate bedrooms.
“He was like, I can’t do this anymore.’ And I’m like, I understand,’” Cuoco revealed in a February 2026 episode of the Armchair Expert podcast. “So he started sleeping in the guest room.”
Cuoco called the decision a “game changer,” especially since she and Pelphrey have very different nighttime routines.
“He writes at night. He reads. It’s his quiet time,” she shared. “So he’s up late and wakes up late on a non-working day. We established this from day one. I go to bed early, and I wake up early. We’re totally on different sleeping schedules.”
While Cuoco wasn’t sure about Pelphrey’s move into the guest room at first, she now says, “It works great for us. We’re, like, so much happier.”
Bette Midler and Martin von Haselberg
Hollywood marriages are not known for their longevity, so you know Bette Midler must be doing something right. She’s been married to her husband, artist Martin von Haselberg, since 1984. And she’s not shy about revealing the secret to her long-lasting partnership.
“Separate bedrooms,” bette midler confessed to Entertainment Tonight in 2024. Additionally, “My husband snores.”
No, she wasn’t joking, and this wasn’t a recent development. Midler noted that she and von Haselberg have slept separately since the start of their relationship. “It’s been a fabulous ride,” she said.
While Midler may not have previously gone on the record about sleeping arrangements specifically, the revelation does jibe with what she’s said in the past about why her marriage works. As she told PEOPLE back in 2014, “I think the secret is giving each other a lot of lead and a lot of room and not being in each other’s faces all the time.”
Kevin and Danielle Jonas
Kevin Jonas was the first of the Jonas Brothers to get married, tying the knot with Danielle Deleasa in 2009. Just five months into their marriage, however, an unnamed source told InTouch Weekly that his snoring sometimes drove Danielle to sleep in the guest room.
“Kevin and Danielle had never spent a night together until their wedding night, so she had no clue that he snores so loudly,” an insider told the outlet in 2010. “She loves her husband, but now she sleeps in a guest room when he gets too noisy.”
The source claimed that the arrangement had eased any potential tension between the pair.
“They are still crazy about each other,” the insider said. “But the snoring has become a big joke for their friends.”
Carson and Siri Daly
“Sleep divorce” might sound like a scary term, but it’s something Carson Daly has been advocating for years. In 2024, he told PEOPLE that he and wife, Siri, regularly sleep in different rooms.
“It’s been good for us,” Carson shared. “We don’t do it all the time, but a couple of days during the week — especially if I want to watch an Islanders hockey game kind of later at night — I go into the guest room, she retires upstairs to read her book or watch a show.”
The couple, who have been married since 2015, first started sleeping separately in 2019. “I have sleep apnea, my wife’s pregnant, and during a home renovation, we downgraded to a queen-size bed,” he explained. “We just felt like we’re better off sleeping in different beds.”
After the birth of their fourth child, Goldie, the couple continued the arrangement. A temporary move to the West Coast also required Carson to wake up around 3 a.m. for his Today show call time, making the sleep divorce even more essential. Carson reiterated that the strength of the relationship is ultimately all that matters.
“The object is to stay together. That’s what we’d like to do,” he told PEOPLE. “And so reverse engineering that, it’s like — by any means necessary, for the two of us.”
Robin Roberts and Amber Laign
Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts and her wife, Amber Laign, started dating in 2005 before getting married in September 2023. They have occasionally been asked what keeps their impressively stable relationship going strong. In their case, it’s more than just separate beds.
“The true secret: separate apartments,” Laign told E! News in 2025. She made sure to add, “Communication, keeping it fresh, trust — all the good pillars.”
Roberts, who generally keeps her personal life private, divulged her unusual living arrangement with Laign in her 2014 memoir, Everybody’s Got Something.
“Amber and I have been a loving couple for almost 10 years now, but we choose not to live together,” she wrote. “Maybe that’s why we’ve lasted almost a decade!”
Now more than two decades into their relationship, it’s tough to argue with the results.
Barbara Corcoran and Bill Higgins
Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran can also boast an impressively long marriage, having been hitched to Bill Higgins since 1988. As it turns out, she’s also a strong proponent of separate bedrooms, which she detailed on a 2024 episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show.
“I think there’s something to be said about your own private space,” Corcoran said. “I lead a very busy life. I have a huge family that I’m always entertaining. I have very sincere, active friends and so what I need more than anything else is a respite, and my husband is not relaxing.”
The rules are simple: If Higgins wants to enter Corcoran’s bedroom, he has to be invited. For her part, Corcoran noted that she rarely enters his. “He puts piles of stuff everywhere and I am very neat so I couldn’t sleep well at night,” she said. “Now I sleep like a baby.”
It’s not only a matter of sleeping soundly, though. Corcoran has said that the different bedrooms keep things “fun,” which is why she and Higgins have maintained the arrangement for around 40 years.
Raven-Symoné and Miranda Pearman-Maday
Sometimes, spouses have different reasons for deciding that sleeping separately is the way to go. That’s certainly true for Raven-Symoné and her wife, Miranda Pearman-Maday. The couple, who have been together since 2015 and married since 2020, explained their reasons on their podcast, Tea Time with Raven and Miranda.
“We function better in separate spaces,” Pearman-Maday said in 2025. “Not all the time, but especially when it comes to sleep. You are such a sporadic, bizarre sleeper, and I really need sleep to function. I was like, ‘We should have separate bedrooms, then we could each decorate our rooms the way we want,’ because you had a different vibe.”
Raven-Symoné, meanwhile, offered a romantic assessment of their nightly time apart. “I believe in absence makes the heart grow fonder,’” she said. “We work together, we live together, we eat together, we cook together, we drive together. It’s like, I’m going to have a little time to myself, and I think that it’s actually helping.”
During an August 2025 appearance on Jeff Lewis Live, the couple elaborated, with Pearman-Maday calling her wife a “crazy sleeper” who would often keep her awake. But it sounds like their nighttime habits simply weren’t compatible.
“It’s the hair, the humidifier, the curtains, the way she lays in the bed with red light systems on her whole entire body,” Raven-Symoné said of Pearman-Maday’s nighttime routine. “I’m in bed on TikTok. My legs are spread all the way open, half naked.”
Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin
Back in 2014, filmmaker Baz Luhrmann made headlines when he admitted that he and wife, Catherine Martin — a production designer, costume designer, and producer — slept separately most nights.
“I was finding I was saying things in passing that weren’t properly thought through, things would become fraught,” he told Daily Mail Australia. “We both needed time to ourselves.”
That arrangement involved maintaining separate bedrooms Sunday through Friday. On Saturday, Luhrmann and Martin would have a date night, complete with a shared hotel room.
“We dress up and go to a restaurant or maybe see a show, but mostly we just talk and catch up. It’s very much our escape, our quality time together,” he explained. “It’s very romantic and keeps us grounded and connected. Then we head back to the hotel and the next day is important too as we relax, watch TV and don’t head home until after lunch.”
Sheryl Lee Ralph and Vincent Hughes
Think separate bedrooms would be tough for you and your partner? Imagine separate homes — on opposite sides of the country. That’s the reality for Sheryl Lee Ralph and her husband, Pennsylvania state senator Vincent Hughes. Luckily, it works for them.
“You fall in love with somebody and you realize he’s not leaving his career,” Ralph explained to PEOPLE in 2025. “He’s not leaving Philadelphia. I’m not leaving Hollywood.”
The couple, who married in 2005, have generally maintained separate homes throughout their relationship. They see each other about every two weeks, an arrangement they established early on and have kept up with ever since.
“He has his own life. I have my own life,” Ralph said. “He has his own real career, I have my own real career. He has his light to stand in, I have my light to stand in. He is not looking at me thinking about status or this or that. He’s doing his thing. I get to do my thing.”
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Brian Cox and Nicole Ansari-Cox
“You should be free,” actor Brian Cox said in a 2026 interview with The Times. For him and Nicole Ansari-Cox, his wife of 24 years, that means living apart — an arrangement that’s less common than simply maintaining separate bedrooms.
Nevertheless, it’s one that has kept both spouses happy. Each has a home in London, with the two residences located just a nine-minute walk apart. While they share homes in Brooklyn and upstate New York, they keep separate bedrooms in both.
“By keeping things separate, we are responsible for our own mess,” Cox reflected. “It’s as simple as that. Her space is very important for her, and my space is very important for me. I think if we’re thrown together, we feel locked together, and that’s not a good creative relationship.”
The arrangement appears to have kept the couple close, though Cox also credits couples therapy with strengthening their relationship.
“Nicole gave up a lot for me,” he told The Times. “It was tricky for her, but she gave up a lot, and I feel that she needs to be honored.”
