Fran Lebowitz's Longest Relationship Lasted Three Years

Netflix's Pretend It's a City is introducing many viewers to the inimitable Fran Lebowitz, the New York writer, socialite, and all-around hilarious complainer that many have likened to a modern-day Dorothy Parker.

Famously known for her decades-long writer's block, Fran has supported herself since the mid '90s with speaking engagements, television appearances, and now, with her own Netflix series, in which longtime friend Martin Scorsese interviews her about New York City and other topics.

While she's extremely vocal about her opinions about everything from Times Square to texting, not much is known about the personal life of this famously heavy smoker. So, does Fran Lebowitz have a partner? Has she ever? Keep reading while we investigate.

Since she came up on the New York scene back in the '70s, Fran was openly out. "One of the reasons people our age came to New York, if you were gay, was because you were gay," she recalls to Martin in Pretend It's a City. "Now you can be gay anywhere. But we came here because you couldn't live in those places, and so that created, you know, a kind of density of angry homosexuals, which is always good for a city."

She went on to make a name for herself with her first book, Metropolitan Life, and a few years later in the '80s with her discussions of the cultural void that was left behind as a result of losing a generation of artists and intellectuals to the HIV/AIDs crisis.

But when it comes to her own partnerships, Fran claims that her longest relationship lasted three years. "I'm the world's greatest daughter. I'm a great relative. I believe I'm a great friend," she told Interview magazine. "I'm a horrible girlfriend. I always was."

The word in some New York lesbian circles was that Fran only dated models in the '90s, while other rumors speculate that she and good friend Dolly Parton are or at some point have been in a romantic relationship.

But in Fran's own words: "I could not possibly be in a relationship for more than six days." "When I was younger," she continued, "I might have said six months, although I think the longest relationship I was ever in was three years. But what I can't be is monogamous. That tends to upset people."

"I just don't like domestic life," she said, and has explained separately in an interview with The Boston Spirit that younger gay people "seem like straight people: they get married, they have children, they bang into you with their strollers, they irritate you."

"When I was young, I liked romance. But to me, romance is the opposite of domestic life. I just don't want anyone in the apartment, not for longer than a few hours. Three or four hours, okay, fine. I just don't want to hear someone else walking around," she said to Interview. "I am alternately very gregarious—very sociable—and then very solitary."

"I’m great at the beginning, because I can be very romantic," she went on. "But, I mean, years ago I had a girlfriend who summed me up perfectly. She said, 'You know what it’s like being with you? At the beginning, every day, you asked me a hundred questions about myself. Then 50 questions, then 20 questions, then, finally, you said, ‘Can you see I’m trying to read?’ ”

Sounds like Fran Lebowitz is happy paving her own solitary way these days in New York, something she's done for as long as she's been around.