Rachel Zoe Reveals What She Really Thinks About Dating After Splitting from Husband of 26 Years (Exclusive)
- - Rachel Zoe Reveals What She Really Thinks About Dating After Splitting from Husband of 26 Years (Exclusive)
Brianne TracyJanuary 1, 2026 at 2:45 AM
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Rachel Zoe -
Rachel Zoe says it's been "incredibly fun" dating in this new era of her life
She reveals whether it was hard for her to step back into the dating pool following her split from her husband of 26 years Rodger Berman
She also opens up about what she's looking for in her next partner
Rachel Zoe is "absolutely dating" in this new chapter.
The celebrity stylist-turned-fashion mogul, 54, tells PEOPLE that she had no qualms about re-entering the dating pool following her separation from her husband of 26 years Rodger Berman in September 2024.
"It's incredibly fun," Zoe says of dating. "To be honest, that wasn't hard for me to get into. It really wasn't."
Zoe says this "era" for her is all about "freedom."
"Anyone who comes into my life or our lives is only going to be someone that adds value in terms of making me laugh, making me smile and really just making sense," she says. "It'll have to feel organic and natural to who I am now."
In the time leading up to their separation, Zoe says she and Berman had become different people.
"I was done. I was really done," says Zoe, who filed for divorce in July. "I don't suffer from guilt of not having given it everything I could have. I don't suffer from that, and I don't suffer from feeling like it was a failed marriage. Having been married for 26 years, I would say that three-quarters of that was amazing."
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Rachel Zoe and Rodger Berman
Zoe and Berman, 57, first met in 1991, while they were both students at George Washington University. They got married in 1998 and share two sons: Skyler, 14, and Kaius, 12.
Zoe says she realized the relationship had become fractured when she started "to question decisions" and realized that she and Berman didn't agree "on what certain outcomes should be."
"I started to feel like this may not be the most advantageous situation for our children," she says. "For me for the last 14 years, literally every breath I take is for my kids. So every decision I make, every lens that I look through is through a lens of my children, of what are they going to think? What are they going to say? How will this affect them? I have never felt that people should live together and stay together unhappy."
Zoe admits that "in hindsight" she "100%" should have "left sooner."
"I think if you ask any woman who has left a situation, they would probably say that they probably should have done it sooner," she says. "But it is what it is. At the end of the day, I ultimately did what's best for the kids. I think that having two parents that love them is more important than having two parents together that maybe shouldn't be together anymore."
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Rachel Zoe and Rodger Berman with their sons Kaius and Skyler
Zoe opens up about her divorce more on her return to reality TV with season 15 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. By sharing her story, she hopes "to help as many women as possible."
"I mean, probably at least 30% of the women in my life are going through a separation or a divorce," she says. "The question I kept getting asked and still get asked is: ‘Why am I so okay coming out of a relationship that really transcended my entire adult life?’ It's because I'm independent — financially, professionally and socially. I think that there isn't enough emphasis put on the importance of that.”
“You have to have your own things to wake up for every day," she continues. "I think because of that, when I made the decision to leave my marriage, it was like, okay, next. No matter what life throws at you, you have to be able to stand up on your own. You just have to.”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo, with episodes available to stream the next day on Peacock.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
