Charlize Theron thinks there was too much emphasis on her year-long relationship with Sean Penn. The Oscar winners started dating in late 2013 and news of their split broke in mid 2015, but in a new interview on The Howard Stern Show, Theron denies that she and Penn were ever engaged, despite multiple reports to the contrary.

“We dated. That is literally all we did,” she says. “We were definitely exclusive, but it was for barely a year. We never moved in.”

Theron, who has been public in the past about not wanting to get married, reiterates, “I’ve never wanted to get married. That’s never been something that’s important to me.”

Despite her single status, the 44-year-old Bombshell actress and mother of two says she’s “never been lonely.” 

“I have never felt alone,” she says. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to live with somebody again. To be totally frank, they might have to buy the house next to me.”

In a 2016 interview with WSJ Magazine after her split from Penn, Theron shut down claims that she had ghosted the actor following their romance. 

“There is a need to sensationalize things,” she told the publication at the time. “When you leave a relationship there has to be some fking crazy story or some crazy drama. And the fking ghosting thing, like literally, I still don’t even know what it is. It’s just its own beast.”

“We were in a relationship and then it didn’t work anymore. And we both decided to separate. That’s it,” she added.

When Theron spoke with Kevin Frazier in April 2019, she joked she was “shockingly available,” adding, “I’ve been single for 10 years, [dating me is] not a long shot. Somebody just needs to grow a pair and step up.”