Did Charli XCX, Margot Robbie find a cure to the loneliness epidemic?

For decades, Americans grew up with the dream of one day owning and moving into a house with their spouse or significant other. A white picket fence, front yard, kids − maybe even a dog.
Some people, however, are expanding that vision by opting to live with their friends, even when having roommates isn’t a financial necessity. It’s even taken hold among some celebrities. In 2021, Jameela Jamil shared on X that she and her longtime partner, musician James Blake, live with two of their best friends.
“Living with my three best friends still, even into my mid thirties is the single greatest feeling on earth,” Jamil wrote. “I love these people. I thought by now life would be traditional. I hope we all, always live together. I hope we all grow old in a little British commune together.”
In a housing market where owning a home seems more and more out-of-reach, living with friends has become the norm for many. Experts say it also signals a shift in how society views friendships. Instead of sidelining friends to prioritize family, many are instead valuing their friends as much as they do their families − and choosing to organize their lives accordingly. Doing so can be key in combatting loneliness, which has become an epidemic.
“When we were younger, we lived with our friends in college, which many of us remember as the happiest time in our lives, and then you grew up and the American dream becomes getting a single-family home, which is often quite far away from your friends, quite far away from your family,” says Liz Moody, a wellness writer who previously discussed this topic on her show “The Liz Moody Podcast.” “We’re feeling those isolation effects with the increasing loneliness rates and the epidemic of loneliness that’s happening in this country.”
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Jamil isn’t the only celebrity who’s chosen to live with friends. Charli XCX told Architectural Digest in 2019 she lived with three people − two of whom are childhood friends − in her home in Los Angeles.
“I feel like it’s the people in your home that make it a home,” the pop star said. “The house feels very full and lively, so we get to meet a lot of other creative people just through the house. I really enjoy that, and I think that’s part of the reason why the house is what it is.”
Additionally, Margot Robbie told news.com.au in 2016 she and her then-boyfriend (now husband) Tom Ackerley had four roommates in their London flat, even as films like “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Suicide Squad” and “The Legend of Tarzan” shot her to fame.
Moody says this demonstrates how having roommates isn’t always about finances. Sometimes, it’s for simple companionship. After all, she says, celebrities get lonely too.
“Celebrities are just as lonely and sometimes even more so than the rest of us. We pedestal them, and we think they have these incredibly glamorous lives, but those lives are often isolating them even further from other people,” she says. “Human connection is the most vital thing to our health and to our mental health, and celebrities aren’t exempt from that.”
It’s not just celebrities who are choosing to live with friends either. Rhaina Cohen, the author of the book “The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center,” says she and her husband have lived together with various friends over the past three years in Washington, D.C.
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Even though it was cheaper for she and her husband to live alone in their rent-stabilized apartment, she says what they’ve gained by moving in with friends has been invaluable.
“Friends can rise to the level of the people that you would build your life around,” she says. “A romantic partner is not the only person who you can choose to go through major life milestones together or entangle parts of your life like your finances and the home you share. So I think for a lot of people, it’s questioning what we’re told is the right way to do things, and then looking at their own preferences instead.”
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Though Cohen prefers living with her husband as well as friends, she understands it’s not for everyone − and that’s OK. What’s important, she says, is that people know living with friends is an option.
“I really am not trying to say that this is a better way for people to live. People have really different preferences,” Cohen says. “I just think it’s something that has not been taken seriously. It’s not been on the table. And that part is changing.”
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For those who do live with friends, there are many benefits − but also things to be mindful of.
Psychotherapist Stephanie Sarkis says it’s important to choose friends as roommates who share your values and have compatible lifestyles.
“It’s not for everybody, but I think that for many people it is having somebody they can check in with at the beginning and end of the day. They can find comfort in maybe sharing a meal together,” she says, adding that roommates “can really reduce that chance of the feeling of loneliness.”
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Moody says living with friends also reorients the way you connect. For many who live alone, it takes time and effort to arrange meetups with friends, especially if they live far away. When you actually do get together, most of this time is spent catching up on everything that’s happened in your lives since your last visit.
When your friends are your roommates, however, you can connect more over the here and now.
“The things that build connections and deepen relationships are living your life together,” Moody says. “It’s going grocery shopping together. It’s making dinner together. It’s doing work dates together. It’s gardening together. It’s playing basketball together. It’s actually living life together. So you’re building those memories, and living communally provides myriad opportunities to do so.”