Octavia Spencer Says Her "Heart Is Broken" for Sandra Bullock After "Soulmate" Bryan Randall's Death

Octavia Spencer mourned the death of Sandra Bullock's partner Bryan Randall—who passed away following a private battle with ALS—and noted "the world lost a talented, handsome, all around good guy!"

By Elyse Dupre Aug 09, 2023 12:31 PMTags
Watch: In Memoriam: Fallen Stars of 2023

Octavia Spencer is sending love to Sandra Bullock after the death of her partner Bryan Randall.

"My heart is broken for Sandy and Bryan," the Hidden Figures star wrote on Instagram Aug. 8. "Sandy lost her soulmate and the world lost a talented, handsome, all around good guy! My prayers and condolences to their families." 

And Octavia had a message for Bryan, who passed away at age 57 following his battle with ALS.

"RIP Bryan Randall," the actress—who first worked with Sandra in the 1996 movie A Time to Kill—continued. "In heaven, there's a tiny little lady up there who looks an awful lot like me bossing the Angels around. Especially Gabriel. She'll get him to play any song you want to hear. Give her a kiss from me. #soulmates #ALS." 

Octavia's post came a day after Bryan's family announced his death. 

"It is with great sadness that we share that on Aug. 5, Bryan Randall passed away peacefully after a three-year battle with ALS," they said in a statement to People Aug. 8. "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."

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Celebrity Deaths: 2023's Fallen Stars

The family shared how they "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." They also asked for privacy as they "come to terms with the impossibility of saying goodbye to Bryan."

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Bryan, a photographer, met Sandra in 2015 after he took pictures of her son Louis, who she adopted in 2010, at his birthday. They soon began dating—with their private romance being cast into the public eye—and she adopted daughter Laila later that year.

"He was so happy," Sandra recalled on a 2021 episode of Red Table Talk. "But he was 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."

Though they shielded much of their relationship from the limelight, the Oscar winner let her and her children's love for Bryan be known. As she put it, "He's the example that I would want my children to have." 

And Sandra called Bryan the "love of my life"—noting they didn't need to be married for them to be devoted partners to each other.

"We share two beautiful children—three children, his older daughter," she added on the former Facebook Watch series. "It's the best thing ever. I don't wanna say, 'Do it like I do it.' But I don't need a paper to be a devoted partner and 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."

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And Sandra's sister Gesine Bullock-Prado recently reflected on how the Miss Congeniality star cared for Bryan.

"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 on Instagram Aug. 7. "Rest in peace, Bryan."

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