On Sunday night, the 98th annual Academy Awards took place. During the ceremony, Barbra Streisand took the stage to pay tribute to the late great Robert Redford, who died in his sleep in September of last year at the age of 89.
While Streisand’s speech appears to have gone over well with most in Hollywood, it seemingly didn’t sit well with her fellow Oscar-winner Jane Fonda. Indeed, within minutes of the Oscars ceremony coming to an end, Fonda was speaking out to complain that she should have gotten to pay tribute to Redford instead.
Fonda Sounds Off
After the Oscars, Fonda attended the Vanity Fair post-ceremony party. There, Fonda let her feelings on Streisand getting the chance to honor Redford be known.
“I want to know how come Streisand was up there doing that for Redford?” Fonda, 88, told Entertainment Tonight.
Fonda proceeded to whine that Streisand, 83, “only made one movie with him, I made four! I have more to say.”
Fonda concluded by admitting that Streisand “was always in love with him. The most gorgeous human being and such great values. And he did a lot for movies, he really changed movies, lifted up independent movies.”
Streisand and Redford the 1973 Sydney Pollack-directed movie The Way We Were. Meanwhile, Fonda is correct in saying that she starred with Redford in four movies. Those four films were: The Chase (1966), Barefoot in the Park (1967) and The Electric Horseman (1979) and finally Our Souls at Night (2017).
Streisand’s Redford Tribute
During her tribute to Redford on the Oscars stage, Streisand recalled their time working with him on The Way We Were. She described Redford as being “a brilliant, subtle actor. And we had a wonderful time playing off each other because we never quite knew what the other one was going to do in the scene.”
Streisand went on to say that Redford had a “real backbone” both on screen and off.
“He was thoughtful and bold,” she said. “I called him an intellectual cowboy, who blazed his own trail… I miss him now more than ever, even though he loved teasing me. He called me ‘Babs’ and I said, ‘Bob, do I look like a Babs? I’m not a Babs, you know?’ But the way he said it made me laugh.”
Check out Streisand’s full tribute to Redford in the video below.
Fonda Accused Of Making Redford ‘Uncomfortable’
Perhaps Fonda wasn’t chosen to pay tribute to Redford because of past claims that she made him “uncomfortable.” This was alleged by the former Fox News host Megyn Kelly back in 2023.
Fonda and Redford had gone on Kelly’s short-lived former NBC television to promote their final movie, Our Souls At Night.
In the film, Fonda and Redford portrayed a widow and widower who decide to start sleeping with one another platonically in order to overcome their respective grief and loneliness. Fonda couldn’t stop talking about their love scenes as they promoted the film on various television shows, and according to Kelly, Redford had enough of it.
“And you could tell he was visibly uncomfortable with it,” Kelly recalled of Redford. “And during the commercial break, Robert Redford’s publicist specifically asked me if I would try to keep her off of that, if I would redirect the conversation to something else.”
After telling his publicist that she would do that, Kelly asked Fonda about “having work done,” asking this as a “favor for Robert Redford.” It should be noted that Fonda had been open about getting plastic surgery for decades. Despite this, Fonda acted offended by the question, yet Kelly had no regrets about stepping in to help Redford.
Maybe this is why you weren’t chosen to pay tribute to Redford at the Oscars, Jane.
Watch Kelly tell more of that story here. Check out the awkward exchange that ensued between Kelly and Fonda for yourself in the video below.
While we’ve never been fans of Streisand either, it’s clear that the Academy made the right choice here in choosing her for this role over Fonda. Given how “uncomfortable” Fonda allegedly made Redford, he would likely be happy with the decision as well!