Barbra Streisand Honors Robert Redford at Oscars
Barbra Streisand paid an emotional tribute to her late friend Robert Redford during Sunday’s 2026 Academy Awards. Redford, who passed away last September at 89, was remembered in the Memoriam segment at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California.
Streisand shared fond memories of the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid star, recalling how he used to tease her. “He’d call me ‘Babs,’ and I’d say, ‘Bob, do I look like a Babs?’ But he made me laugh,” she said.
She also revealed the last note she wrote to Redford. “Many years later, he said, ‘Babs, I love you dearly, and I always will.’ I ended my note with, ‘I love you too,’ signed ‘Babs,’” Streisand recalled. She described Redford as a “thoughtful and bold” “intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail.”
Before leaving the stage, she performed a moving rendition of The Way We Were, the Oscar-winning song from the film she starred in with Redford.
The tribute drew widespread praise on social media, though some viewers complained that the background music was too loud, making parts of Streisand’s speech hard to hear. Despite the technical issues, the performance became one of the night’s most talked-about moments, honoring a Hollywood legend.