Nearly three months after celebrating her milestone birthday, Whitney Way Thore is doing her best to embrace her big fat fabulous 40s.
Frankly, it didn't occur to the reality star to have any strong feelings about that particular f-word until her My Big Fat Fabulous Life producers suggested she should.
"I was like, 'Who cares? Turning 40? Whatever,'" she recounted in an exclusive interview with E! News. "Then I turned 40, and I was like, 'Oh my god, 40.' I hate to be this kind of person. I didn't think I would be that way. But, for women, there are some stark implications that I don't think men go through."
Namely, she wouldn't mind having a little someone to share her fabulous life with.
"I'm feeling real feelings about being 40 and unmarried and no kids," the North Carolina resident explained. And with mom Barbara "Babs" Thore's December 2022 passing at the age of 76 and the fact that her dad Glenn Thore is nearing 80 "mostly it just feels like loneliness. Not only with losing family members, but then also when your closest friends are all partnered. I just feel more alone and that's hard."
Having bid adieu to her mystery French boyfriend, she's been doing her best to say oui to new man-meeting opportunities.
"I definitely have been trying to be less isolated, do things that I enjoy and that does bring some joy, and obviously puts you in positions where you might be able to meet someone," she explained, "But in Greensboro, the pickings are so slim it's tragic."
Which is why, even with her eggs on ice, she's starting to face some cold, hard facts.
On the TLC series' upcoming 12th season (premiering on July 9 at 9 p.m.), "I do go to the fertility doctor and he did give me some encouraging news," Whitney recounted. "If I want to do IVF, I've got a few more years."
However, she continued, "I want a partner. I know I could do it by myself, but I wouldn't, honestly. Obviously, anything can happen in life where you end up being a single mom, but I don't have the confidence to go in knowing I'm going to be single."
Which means unless her luck takes a turn, perhaps with a planned trip to Europe this fall, "I'm thinking if I can't meet the right man, or even a man, what are the chances that I'm ready to have a baby in two or three years?" she questioned. "It's scary. It really is. And I am just trying to assume it won't happen, so that I can come to terms with that. And then if it does, that'll be a nice surprise."
As a woman, explained Whitney, having kids can feel "so ingrained in us, whether that's biological or just sociological or whatever. So even if you weren't sure you wanted kids or it didn't get ripped away right from under you, you mourn the fact that it's never going to happen."
And sometimes you have to catch yourself even in the most casual of conversations.
"Like the other day, I was like, ‘Oh my god, well, my grandchildren, blah, blah, blah,'" she recounted. "And then I had to stop myself and I was like, I'm not going to have any. There are just these realizations over and over, where you're like, 'What am I doing? Is my life going to be empty? Who’s going to be with me when I'm old?'"
You know, your standard, lighthearted fare.
Still, Whitney's doing her best to find the fun, stepping back into the dance studio and committing to outings like baseball games and concerts.
"What's the alternative?" she reasoned. "Am I going to rot for the next 40 years? I've got to find some happiness."
Which is why she's striving to hold to her birthday commitment to focus more on what she has in life—friends, family, a thriving, televised career—and less on what she doesn't.
"Well, it's a lofty goal," she joked, acknowledging it can be a struggle to stick to that mindset. "Just because I wrote it, doesn't mean it's happening. I strive for it."
And some days it's a bit tougher than others.
Take the time an anonymous vandal egged her house, leaving a vicious note behind. The moment, captured by TLC's cameras for the season's premiere, "might seem new to the audience," Whitney said. "But off-camera, this is not new to me. I've had bricks thrown through my car window. People have broken into my parents' house while they were home. People come to my house all the time."
While little surprises her at this point, she was stunned when, following Babs' death, "people started using her to talk s--t to me," revealed Whitney. "They would say, 'Your mother would hate this.' 'Your mother hated you.' 'Your mother was so disappointed in you.' I thought I had heard it all and when people started doing that, that's the worst thing anyone could ever say to me."
Though she acknowledges the vitriol is "absolutely unhinged" and untrue—"It’s not like I need my dad to go, 'No, Whitney, we actually really love you'"—it still stings.
More than a decade into her high-profile career, "It doesn't get easier," she stressed. And coming at a time when she was grieving her mother, she found herself suffering from panic attacks and suicidal ideations.
"I sat down with my producers before we started shooting this season, and I just said, 'I am not in a good place. I need you guys to be patient with me,'" she recalled. The experience inspired her to speak out more about the pervasiveness of cyberbullying. "I really wish people took it more seriously," said Whitney. "I would say, 'Treat people how you do in person.' But then, for me, it comes off the internet, and it's terrifying."
She's thankful for the strength of her support system and the people in her life who love her unconditionally, "but at the end of the day, I don't know that it changes a whole lot," she said. "I live my real life on TV, off TV, whatever. My life is not on the internet or in the hands of all these crazy people. But it still hurts just as bad."