Actor and director Olivia Wilde sparked a discussion with Louis Theroux on his latest podcast, addressing the emerging cultural trend of the “bedroom divorce”, in which couples choose to sleep in separate quarters, saying she found the idea “kind of sexy”.
The director of The Invite, which sees an unhappy couple invite their sexually enthusiastic upstairs neighbours down for dinner, says she has nothing against sleeping in a different bed from her partner. “I’m intrigued by that,” Wilde told Theroux. “You could invite her over in a way that allows for maybe there’s a little bit of mystery in there. I think that’s interesting,” she added.
Heather Darwall-Smith, a UKCP-accredited psychotherapist and sleep specialist, says separate beds no longer mean separate lives, and more people talking about bedroom divorce means there’s less stigma around the practice. In fact, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s 2025 survey of just over 2,000 adults found that 31 per cent had chosen to sleep in separate beds to their partner. This was highest among people aged 35 to 44, at 39 per cent, and lowest among those over 65, at 18 per cent.
When bringing up the topic of separate beds, Darwall-Smith says talk about how you feel instead of blaming your partner. “Saying, ‘I love you, and I haven’t slept properly in a year’ starts a conversation. Saying ‘you snore’ leads to arguments and more sleepless nights.”
