Sandra Bullock referred to her boyfriend, Bryan Randall, as a “saint” and the “love of [her] life” amid his secret three-year battle with ALS.
The actress spoke candidly about her private relationship with the photographer, who died Saturday, in a resurfaced “Red Table Talk” interview from December 2021.
“I found the love of my life,” she told hosts Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris at the time. “We share two beautiful children — three children, his older daughter. It’s the best thing ever.”
Bullock then gushed, “He’s the example that I would want my children to have.”
While the Oscar winner and Randall did not share any kids together, they blended their families when they started dating in 2015.
Bullock, 59, adopted her son, Louis, now 13, in 2010. Five years later, she adopted a 3-year-old girl, Laila, now 11, from a foster home in Louisiana.
Meanwhile, Randall — who met the “Bird Box” star when she hired him to photograph her son’s 5th birthday party in January 2015 — had an adult daughter, Skylar, from a previous relationship.
Bullock said on the Facebook Watch series that Randall was a “saint” when she told him her intention to adopt a second child even though they “hadn’t been together that long.”
“I said, ‘Remember that NDA you signed when you photographed my son?’ I said, ‘You know, that still holds,’” she recalled. “He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘I’m bringing a child home when I come back from Toronto.’”
Bullock shared that Randall was “so happy” but also “scared.”
“I’m a bulldozer. My life was already on the track, and here’s this beautiful human being who doesn’t want anything to do with my life but the right human being to be there,” she recalled.
The “Proposal” star — who divorced her ex-husband, Jesse James, in 2010 after he had multiple affairs — also said she was “so glad the universe had [her] wait” to start a family with the right partner.
“I don’t always agree with him, and he doesn’t always agree with me,” she admitted. “But if [the kids] can take away from that and that is where they feel drawn to, he’s the exact right parent to be in this position.”
Bullock added that she had no plans on marrying Randall despite her deep love and appreciation for him because she wanted to put their children first.
“I don’t need a paper to be a devoted partner, devoted mother,” she explained. “I don’t need to be told to be ever-present in the hardest of times. I don’t need to be told to weather a storm with a good man.”
Randall’s family confirmed in a heartbreaking statement Monday that the shutterbug died at the age of 57 after secretly battling the neurodegenerative disease for three years.
“Bryan chose early to keep his journey with ALS private and those of us who cared for him did our best to honor his request,” his family shared in the statement.
“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.”
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord which control voluntary muscle movement, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
As the disease progresses, the brain loses the ability to initiate and control voluntary movement. A cure for ALS — also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease — has yet to be found, and there is also no effective treatment to reverse its progression.
Bullock and Randall made their public debut as a couple at the premiere of her film “Our Brand Is Crisis” in October 2015.
The movie star has yet to comment on her partner’s death.
