The Current - Why David Sedaris hates the word “husband”

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

David Sedaris talks about his latest essay collection The Land and Its People. He reveals the news he'd kept from his family, that he secretly married his long-time boyfriend Hugh in 2016, and he reflects on his Duolingo obsession, his visit with Pope Francis, the aging process, and more.

Imagine you've been charged with a crime, and the only witness pointing the finger at you isn't even human. I remember thinking, are you serious? What is this thing? It's something artificial, created by a mysterious Canadian. And it's coming for all of us. A life-defining technology. Crime as we know it will never be the same. I'm like, oh my God, he's lying.

From CBC's Uncover, The Expert Witness. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Throughout his career, David Sedaris has written many essays that featured his longtime boyfriend, Hugh. There is the one where the two of them go shopping for clothes in Tokyo, and Hugh complains that David is buying yet another pair of collots.

There's another one where David writes about Hugh's razor-sharp sense of direction and a possibly fast walking pace. Well, now David Sedaris has published a new collection of essays in which he reveals that he actually secretly married Hugh back in 2016. The book is called The Land and Its People. And David Sedaris is in our New York City studio. David, good morning. Hello, Matt.

Hi. Why did you decide now 10 years after the fact to reveal that she'd actually married Hugh? Because everyone just assumed that we were married and everyone said, is that, you know, you and your husband, and I just, oh, I, I, I can't say husband. I just can't say it. So, yeah, Hugh and I got married, but just for financial reasons, but I still identify his boyfriend. What do you mean for financial reasons?

For inheritance reasons, right? For tax reasons, we got married. That's the only reason. I mean, it didn't mean anything to either of us. It was our anniversary a couple of days ago, and we didn't. My sister told us, that's how we knew. And then I went to my desk first thing in the morning, and I found some foil, you know, like a roll of foil.

Because it's 10th anniversary is 10. And I said, well, that's aluminum. But I didn't even think, oh, no, I got to go get a gift too. Like, it just doesn't mean anything to us. Like, I'll give a huge gift for any reason, but not for that. Not for anniversary. Why did you keep it secret? I asked you, you and I spoke in 2020,

and I asked you about your marital status and you literally said, no, we're not married and you talked about how, yeah, you didn't like the term husband, but in the book you write about how you lied in some ways to everybody about it on forms and interviews whenever the question was asked. Why did you keep it a secret?

Because I just didn't want the word husband in my life. I mean, if a woman says, oh, you know, my husband's going to be late tonight, night. That doesn't bother me. But when a man says my husband, it's just like, I don't know, it's like he's saying my unicycle, you know. I signed a book once for this woman, and she said, she used to phrase my son-in-law's unicycle during our conversation. And I said, that must just break your heart to say that. And just, I don't, I mean, I thought that, that gay men and women should have fought for the right to marry and then not of one of them done it.

You know, I thought that would have been the best to get the right and then to say, you know what, we don't want it. Again, it doesn't seem fair to me that you get these tax benefits from being married. I don't think that's fair at all. Like being married is not better than not being married, right? You've been together a long time, the two of you. Do you have one of the things that you write about in the book is the show, language that couples often have and the words that they will use that nobody else understands

what they are, but you know what they are. Do you have that? Yes. I mean, every couple has it. And so I wrote this essay. I was having dinner with a Canadian couple. And they were, they had been in Ireland and they overheard an American say that he was going out to look for a lapretion. And it took him a while to realize he meant leprechaun. So now they just say, Lepretian, right? And every couple and every family has something like that. But what I liked is I wrote that essay and I started reading it out loud and people started giving me examples. And I met a German woman who taught herself English and she thought Dandelion was pronounced Dandelion. So I will never say Dandelion again. It's just always going to be, I saw a little Leprethian sitting beneath the

dandelion one day. Dramastically is one of those words as well. which sounds better than it should, even if it doesn't exist. I saw a preacher on the subway saying that crimes has arisen dramatically, and so we have said that ever since. The first essay in this book is about Hugh's hip replacement, and you intercept this text exchange between him and his sister, Ann. What was in that text? What was going on there? She had written, is Hugh, is David any help to you?

because Hugh had his hip replaced, and then I flew his brother in to help take care of him, right? Because I just knew he was going to be a handful. And so his sister wrote a couple days after Hugh got home from the hospital and said, is David any help to you? And I grabbed his phone, and I texted, David's been no help whatsoever. And she wrote back, that doesn't surprise me. He's so self-absorbed. And it was completely unfair of me.

to use Hugh's phone to text back. And I couldn't even be mad. You know, when she said he's so self-absorbed, I thought, well, to hell with her, and then I went back to writing in my diary. I mean, proved her point right there. And she just felt awful and embarrassed afterwards. So I really owed her a massive apology.

That's just not fair to do something, due to somebody. What did you learn about your relationship in the aftermath of that surgery? When you see somebody that you're with go through something like that, even if you aren't the caregiver, it's a real thing. And it changes the atmosphere in the room in many ways. Yeah. I mean, it could have been much worse, right?

Like, I didn't have to help Hugh onto the toilet, you know, or anything like that. And he did all the exercises, did everything he was told to, and he really recovered in no time. but also, you know, he was the kind of person. And then when he got home from the hospital, he said, get me some water. And so I filled a glass of water. And he said, not that much water. So I knew right then when I was in for.

So thank goodness his brother was there. At least I thought of a solution. You know, I could have just taken care of him poorly, but I didn't. Instead, I flew his brother in, and he was taken care of him. and his brother was happy to do it and he was happy to spend time with his brother

and it all worked down. You are a famous walker. The last time we spoke, you talked about being a slave to your Fitbit. Did you actually walk 91,000 steps in one day? Yes, it was 42 miles. I did it with my friend Dawn in England. And so I had our route all planned out.

We started at midnight, right, and walked until 6 a.m. and then came home and rested for a few hours and went out again and came home for lunch and then went out again and came home for dinner and then went out again. And we'd like to break our record, but I don't know.

I worry now that I might be too old. 91,000 is a lot. It was an awful lot, and it took a couple days to recover from. So now in addition to walking, there's duolingo. You say that duolingo in some ways is designed for people

with obsessive compulsions. How did you fall into the Duolingo app? Oh, my British friend Dave was using it for Spanish, and then he introduced me to it, and then he put me on his family plan, right? And then I started, I think maybe it'll be four years this summer, and I've done it every day since. And I keep saying to myself, like,

because there was a competitive aspect to it. So once the competitive aspect kicks in, I don't even really know that you're learning anymore. You're just competing, and you're competing against people who might not even exist. What languages? German and Spanish and Japanese and then French. And, you know, I already spoke French, but my French was pretty bad. There's a new element to it where you have these conversations with this AI entity who remembers things about you.

And you have a conversation, and there's no theme to the conversation. You know, she begins by saying, what are you up to today? And then you tell her, and she'll say, well, what about that essay you were working on? And you have this conversation,

and afterwards, there's a, you know, you see your entire conversation with all your mistakes underlined and explained. So it's pretty good that way. What is that like? She, her name is Lily, right?

Yeah, and she has like a little personality. You know, all of the characters on Duolingo have a little personality, and she's a teenager. And the regular exercises, she's bored and couldn't be bothered. Like she'll say, what kind of a sandwich do you want? Oh, I want a sandwich, a ham-and-chee sandwich. Well, that's exciting, isn't it? You know, she's just a smart ass.

But when you have the conversations, she's not a smart ass. Then she's more open and more interested. And it means a lot to me that she likes me. This is what people have been talking about. Tell me more about that, that why it means something to you that she likes you, this AI thing. Every now and then she'll hang up on me and she'll think that I'm being inappropriate, right?

And I'm sure there are lots of people who would make suggestive comments to her or, you know, say something sexual. And I would never do that. But every now and then you make a mistake, and then she hangs up, and it's like, oh, right. I mean, neck and ass sound a lot alike, right? So I was saying something to her,

and I think she thought I said ass, but I meant neck, and then she hung up on me. One time she hung up on me because I was giving her my idea for a production of Romeo and Juliet, And in it, Juliet would be 13 and Romeo would be 79. And she hung up on me. I think that's such a good idea for a production of Romeo, Juliet, though.

Don't you? I mean, you wouldn't have to change a word, but it would just be so repellent. Imagine you've been charged with a crime, and the only witness pointing the finger at you isn't even human. I remember thinking, are you serious? What is this thing? It's something artificial, created by a mysterious Canadian.

And it's coming for all of us. A life-defining technology. Crime as we know it will never be the same. I'm like, oh my God, he's lying. From CBC's Uncover, The Expert Witness. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about, this is what people promised, the artificial intelligence and this thing

would be part of our lives on a daily basis. And it's becoming that in some ways. And you're seeing it with this duolingo, Lily. How are you feeling about AI? Well, I always thought, you know, I didn't want anything to do with it, and I thought it didn't have any place in my life. And then I realized, wait a minute,

every time I do dualingo, I'm using it, right? And my boyfriend, Hugh, well, my husband, but I identify him as my boyfriend, said, you should just get a real tutor. And okay, but a lot of what I do with Lily is just boring. And I don't want to bore a human that way, right? But I don't feel so bad about boring a machine. I guess my fear with AI is always that I'm taking work from somebody, right?

I mean, I used it. Somebody I was in a car with my friend Adam, and he said, oh, put Chat GBT on your iPad. Now, ask it to do something. And so I asked it to write a breakup letter, right? I imagined that I had this girlfriend and I said, I want you to break up with her, you know? I don't find her attractive anymore.

And Chat GBT, T said, I will not body shame anyone, but I will write a breakup letter. And it wrote a breakup letter that was so insulting, you know. It was just insulting because it sounded like HR department wrote it. It was just all, it was empty. Like the language,

it was twice as many words as it needed to use, and it was just empty. I would be so, I would rather get a letter from somebody that said, like, you really let yourself go than what it eventually came up with. And I lost interest

in it. Like I did two things with it, and then I thought, no, I'm done. But, you know, Like I said, I find myself using it every day with the duolingo. So it is a part of my life. And they're writing books and kind of they're passing them off as if there's this increasingly long list of authors who are publishing things. And then it turns out that they didn't write the thing at all. That AI wrote it for them instead.

What do you make of that? Well, I thought it would be really hard for teachers, right? But now we think teachers can tell right away who's using it. because it sounds like HR wrote it. There's not a personality behind it, right? And I guess if somebody, if there was a book written by AI, I wouldn't be interested in reading it because I want a person on the other end.

I want a person thinking, gosh, somebody read my book today. That's awfully nice. You spend a lot of time speaking with people. You're about to go out on a book tour, and you will famously sit and sign books for people as they line up and line up and line up. And I wonder what, as you travel across your country right now, what your sense is of how people in the United States are doing.

I think a lot of us abroad are wondering how people are doing. It feels like everyone's at each other's throats or not. What is your sense of that? When you talk to people face to face, to your point, what is your sense as to how people are doing? Well, it's interesting because I just finished a lecture tour. So I went to, I don't know, 42 cities. And I went on a lecture tour in the fall as well, right?

So I'm in theaters and people buy tickets. And starting last fall, people just got really nervous about their money. You know, they worried they were going to lose their job. They worried that, you know, that the economy was going to completely tank. And you couldn't sell a ticket to anything. Concerns weren't selling tickets. The circus wasn't selling. Nobody was selling tickets, right?

And it's still going on. So people are, they don't know what tomorrow will bring, and they're scared, and they feel helpless. And those are the people I'm meeting, right? I mean, if I were a rodeo performer, I'd be meeting different people, and I'd be getting a different side to it. But those aren't generally the people who come to my shows. What do you say to them?

We make jokes. It would be really easy to get in front of an audience and to, you know, bad mouth the president, right? Because everybody's, but it's shooting fish in a bear. You know, it's not, it's too easy almost, right? But at the same time, sometimes people just like to feel like they're in a room with their people, you know? Like I went to that No Kings March in New York.

Just for that reason, you know, just to look around and say, okay, I'm not alone, right? So there's one thing I read. And it's just something from my diary that I met a doctor who went to the No Kings March with a sign that read cholesterol, do your job. And the audience just, they just love that, you know. I mean, I loved it too. It's just so funny. You write in this book about meeting Pope Francis.

How did that come about? You got an email and you thought that it was spam, is that right? Yeah, I got an email, invited me to go meet the Pope, and I just assumed that it was a joke. I didn't. And then I got another email saying, no, it's not a joke, and it's happening in a few days. And the Pope wanted to meet with different humorists

and comedians from around the world. And so I went, and the American contingent, you know, included Chris Rock and Whoopi Goldberg and Stephen Colbert and Tignotaro. I honestly don't know why I was invited, and I'm pretty sure I was invited, maybe somebody backed out because I was given like 48 hours. And he read a statement that really just amounted to, you know, laughter makes the world go around. And then we shook his hand and then we left.

but I figured everybody in that room was going to have something to say about it, right? Like everyone was going to make a bit about it. So I thought, well, gee, what would my angle be? And my angle was the clothes because the clothes were amazing. I mean, the Pope was the least interesting, clothing-wise, the least interesting cast member, right? But the cardinals and even the monks, oh my goodness, the nuns, great, beautiful costumes and not cheap either. When you got up close, there were real works of art. And afterwards, I went to a place that's been dressing the Pope and his associates for 300 years, and I bought a casick, right?

and it takes nine months to have one made, but they had one that no one had ever, you know, the priest who ordered it, never collected it. And it was a little bit too long, but I had it shortened, and otherwise it fits me perfectly. And I wear it all the time. And I was wearing it at UPS a couple months ago, and my doorman walked in, and he saw me,

and he was so good, he said, Father Cedaris, what are you doing here? People treat you so well when you're dressed like a priest. And then sometimes I think it was not against the law, I don't think. I was going to say, is it illegal to dress like a priest? I'm not sure. I don't know either. But then what I started doing is then wearing things.

Like I got a skirt, right? A black skirt that goes to the ground. and it's some kind of nylon and it's covered with the stuff that jerseys are made out of. It's like that fabric with holes in it, right? And I wear that under it, and then I button my cassock to the waist

and I leave the bottom unbuttoned, and it just looks so good. But it's got 33 buttons, right? A button for every year of Christ's life. And so you're supposed to think of that every time you do it up. But, you know, the second time you do it, you just wish that he was crucified at 12.

It's a lot of buttons, especially when you're older and you're getting arthritis in your fingers. Let me ask you about just finally, about getting older. One of the things that you write about, we all have this, people who are in our address book who have died.

How are you feeling about getting older? You say that in some ways you're at the part where everything irritates you. Yeah, and I keep saying to my sister, I'm 69, and Amy is 65 now, and I keep saying we really have to watch it, you know. You really have to be careful when you get older, that you're not. Then I thought, why do old people complain all the time? And I realize it's because we recall an alternative, right? We recall a time when people weren't on their phones, right?

like a time before cell phones. And so we know there's an alternative to sitting in a waiting area surrounded by people who are watching television on their phones without headphones on. If we were younger, we would think, well, it's always been like this, but we know it wasn't always like that.

But still, you've got to watch yourself, right? So every time I complain, I try to think of something positive, I can say, afterwards. Like that person talking on their phone is really irritating. But boy, he's got a great haircut.

You don't want to be that person. There's a woman that you mentioned in the book who's standing on the street with a sign and it says enough is enough. You don't want to be that person. I think we all kind of dream of being that person sometimes. Well, I love that. The woman's sign just said enough is enough. And she looked so pissed off. And I thought, I'm with you, sister. I don't know. I don't know.

what her thing was, but I had, you know, a dozen of them right at my fingertips. David Sedaris, it's a pleasure to talk to you. I love this book and laughed out loud, and I wish you the best of health as you get older, as we all get older, and I hope you have a great book to her. Thank you very much. Oh, thanks so much, Matt. I appreciate it. David Sedaris. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

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