Can you relate? Chaka Khan, 73, Says She’s Done With Relationships: “I’m Partnered Out”
In a new interview with the U.K.’s Observer, published Thursday, August 20, the 73-year-old icon made it plain that romance is officially off her to-do list. Two marriages, two divorces, and five decades of hits later, Khan says she’s good on her own.
The moment came up when Khan was asked about a line from her brand-new album Chakzilla, where she sings, “I’ve been waiting all my life for this moment,” on the title track. Naturally, folks wanted to know exactly what “this moment” is. Chaka wasn’t giving it up that easy. “I don’t want to discuss that, because if I talk too much about what I would like to have, somebody will try to arrange it for me,” she told the Observer. “So I’m just going to mosey along and let life do what it do. One of them is not necessarily a partner. I’m not looking for that.” She then added, “I’m partnered out.”
The singer who’s been married twice, first to Hassan Khan when she was just 17, and later to Richard Holland, with whom she shares her son Damien, and who’s spoken candidly over the years about how heavy relationships can feel. Back in 2014, she told the Daily Mail that being coupled up was “a lot of work” and admitted that vulnerability scared her more than anything. Ten-plus years later, it sounds like she’s finally landed exactly where she wants to be: solo, settled, and not the least bit sorry about it.
And honestly? At this point in Chaka’s story, she’s earned the right to define peace on her own terms. This is a woman who’s sold an estimated 70 million records, collected 10 Grammys, snagged a 2026 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and finally got her flowers with a 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction after seven nominations.
She’s toured alongside legends like Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, and Stephanie Mills on “The Queens: 4 Legends, 1 Stage,” and she’s still out here dropping brand new music with Chakzilla deep into her seventies. When CBS News asked her last year what retirement might look like, she cracked, “How ’bout, I can now sit back, and look at some good movies, and spend some time with my grandchildren, plant some flowers and s**t?”
That’s the energy. Chaka Khan isn’t closing herself off out of bitterness, she’s choosing herself out of wisdom.