Sandra Bullock rules out marriage to the 'love of my life' Bryan Randall: 'I don't need a paper to be a devoted partner'
Red Table Talk has a high-profile new guest: Sandra Bullock, who opened up to Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Jones about motherhood, mental health and the possibility of marriage with the man she refers to as her partner and the "love of my life," photographer Bryan Randall.
While Randall — whom she met when she hired him to photograph her son Louis's birthday party in 2015 — is her co-parent, Bullock, 57, says they have no plans to marry. The Oscar winner was previously married to TV personality Jesse James of West Coast Choppers fame from 2005 to 2010.
Responding to a divorced viewer's query about whether or not to marry again, the Unforgivable star reflected on her own relationship.
"I am someone who went through the divorce process," she shared. "I found the love of my life. We share two beautiful children — three children, his older daughter. It's the best thing ever. So, I don't want to say do it like I do it, but I don't need a paper to be a devoted partner or a devoted mother. 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."
She advised the viewer to think instead about what kind of parent a lover might be, whether the relationship lasts or not. Speaking with the Smiths, Bullock stressed the importance of finding a true partner, rather than expecting someone perfect to sweep them off their feet. "I can do that for myself," the self-described "strong" woman said. "I've got me covered."
Bullock, who recently addressed speculation that she and Speed co-star Keanu Reeves ever dated, described Randall as being very "patient" with her as they raise son Louis and daughter Laila. Bullock adopted a newborn Louis in 2010, and went through the foster care system to adopt Laila, then a toddler, in 2015.
"He's a saint," she said. "He is evolved on a level that is not human."
But he wasn't involved in her decision to become a parent: "Hell no," she told the RTT hosts. In fact, they "hadn't been together that long" when Bullock, by then already a mom to Louis, announced to him that she would soon be welcoming a second child.
"I go, 'Remember that NDA you signed when you photographed my son?'" she recalled, referencing meeting Randall at Louis's party. "'He was like, 'Yeah.' He was still scared; his whole life had been unraveled because of me. And I said, 'You know that still holds,' and he was like, 'Yeah, OK, OK, OK. Why?' And I was like, 'Because I'm bringing a child home when I come back from Toronto.'"
Randall was "so happy — but he was scared," she shared. "I'm a bulldozer. My life was already on the track. 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 went on to call him the "example I would want my children to have," but noted that she doesn't always see eye to eye with the man her kids call Dad.
"I have a partner who's very Christian and so there's two different ways of looking at things," she explained. "I don't always agree with him; he doesn't always agree with me. But he is an example, even when I don't agree with him, that I [think] if they can take away from that, if that is where they feel drawn to, then he's the exact right parent to be in this position. I'm stubborn, but sometimes I need to sit back and listen and go, 'You're saying it differently but we mean exactly the same thing.' It's hard to co-parent, because I just want to do it myself."
Watch the full Red Table Talk episode — in which Bullock also spoke candidly about the challenges of foster care and parenting two Black children as a white woman — on Facebook Watch.
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