Sandra Bullock stepped back from Hollywood to spend time with her family as her partner Bryan Randall privately dealt with an ALS diagnosis.
Randall, a photographer who Bullock once referred to as the “love of my life,” died on Saturday at age 57 after a three-year battle with ALS. His family shared with PEOPLE that he “chose early to keep his journey with ALS private and those of us who cared for him did our best to honor his request.”
Back in March 2022, Bullock told CBS News that she was taking a break from acting following the release of her romantic comedy The Lost City.
“Right now, work in front of the camera needs to take a pause,” she said at the time.
About how long the break would last, the Oscar winner added, “I don’t know. I don’t know. Until I don’t feel like I feel now when I’m in front of a camera.”
“I want to be at home,” explained Bullock. “I’m not doing anyone any favors who’s investing in a project if I’m saying, ‘I just want to be at home.’ ‘Cause I was always running, I was always running to the next thing. I just want to be present, and responsible for one thing.”
Bullock said it was unclear how she’d spend the time off, but stressed that she didn’t want to indulge the urge to rush back to work.
“Watch: six months from now I can’t handle this anymore, I need to go back to work. But I don’t want to do that. If that feeling comes, I don’t want to do that,” she said. “I don’t want to rely on work to fill me. But I just don’t see a lot, other than everyone under my roof. That’s it. I know it’s not very sexy, but you know what? It’s mine.”
That same month, Bullock — mom to son Louis, 13, and daughter Laila, 11 — echoed to Entertainment Tonight that she was taking time off to be with family.
“Right now, and I don’t know how long that will be, I need to be in the place that makes me happiest,” she told the outlet. “I take my job very seriously when I’m at work. It’s 24/7 and I just want to be 24/7 with my babies and my family.”
“We don’t know how long or how short, but that’s where I’m gonna be for a while,” she added.
On Instagram Monday, Bullock’s sister Gesine Bullock-Prado paid tribute to Randall and praised Bullock’s caretaking in his final years.
“ALS is a cruel disease but there is some comfort in knowing he had the best of caretakers in my amazing sister and the band of nurses she assembled who helped her look after him in their home,” she wrote.
During a wide-ranging Red Table Talk conversation that aired in December 2021, co-host Willow Smith called Bullock a “really strong woman,” which the actress acknowledged.
“I am. And sometimes I wish it wasn’t so… sometimes I just wish I could let myself just fall apart, but it’s not my time yet. I’ll fall apart when it’s my time. I have a spirit that just says, even when things were bad, I’m like, ‘It’s gonna get better,’ ” she said at the time. “I’m lucky.”
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