Photo: Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images
Sandra Bullock took the latest episode of SmartLess to process the death of her longtime partner, Bryan Randall. “He asked me not to share. I know why he asked me not to,” she said, while noting that his request “isolated me in the process.” The photographer died in 2023 after a private three-year battle with ALS. Bullock told SmartLess hosts Sean Hayes, Jason Bateman, and Will Arnett that she kept the diagnosis hidden from even her closest friends for much of that time. “My sister was the only one who knew for a while,” Bullock said. “At first, I go, ‘Oh, I can handle that. I can be quiet.’”
Then lockdown hit, and Bullock was left juggling drug trials, raising young children at home, and caring for her ailing partner — “a trifecta that was pretty dark,” as she called it. Eventually, Bullock shared Randall’s diagnosis with her two closest friends, Jennifer Aniston and Bateman’s wife, Amanda Anka.
As many people who care for a dying loved one know all too well, the grieving process started for Bullock long before Randall died. “Where he was in his journey, both physically and mentally, I started grieving Brian four years before he passed. There was something that had shifted,” she said. “My person left a lot earlier than the body left. I don’t think I ever dealt with that until after he passed, because you’re just on this treadmill.” Bullock took a step back from acting during the last few years of Randall’s illness, but now she’s back in full promo mode for Practical Magic 2.
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