Sandra Bullock opens up about partner Bryan Randall’s ‘traumatic’ ALS death
Actress Sandra Bullock has opened up about the “traumatic” death of her partner Bryan Randall, and the time she spent caring for him before his death of ALS in 2023.
Bullock spoke about the tragedy for the first time this week, in an episode of the Smartless podcast, hosted by Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett.
Randall was a model turned photographer who battled ALS, often also referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease or motor neurone disease, for three years before he died in August 2023, at the age of 57.
“He asked me not to share. I know why he asked me not to,” Bullock said on the podcast.
“I wasn’t allowed to speak about it. That was the request. (...) I wasn’t allowed to tell anybody. My sister was the only one who knew for a while,” she added.
Bullock cared for her ill partner all through the Covid-19 pandemic.
She said caring for him as the disease progressed meant she began grieving years before he died.
“I think where he was in his journey, both physically and mentally, I started grieving Bryan 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.”
The Hollywood star said being asked to keep the disease a secret left her feeling “isolated”.
Bullock said caring for Randall while raising two children during the pandemic was “a trifecta that was pretty dark”.
“Bryan chose to keep his journey with ALS private and those of us who cared for him did our best to honour his request,” Randall’s family said when he died.
“We are immensely grateful to the tireless doctors who navigated the landscape of this illness with us and to the astounding nurses who became our roommates, often sacrificing their own families to be with ours. At this time we ask for privacy to grieve and to come to terms with the impossibility of saying goodbye to Bryan.”
Bullock is currently promoting her upcoming movie Practical Magic 2 in which she stars alongside Nicole Kidman.
Her interview with the Smartless podcast will be out on August 24.