Jane Fonda isn’t shy about speaking her mind — and this time, her target was the Academy itself.
In the days following the 2026 Oscars ceremony, Fonda openly questioned why the Academy chose Barbra Streisand, and not her, to deliver the on-stage tribute to the late Robert Redford during the evening’s In Memoriam segment. Her reasoning? Simple math — and decades of history.
“I want to know how come Streisand was up there doing that for Redford?” Fonda told Entertainment Tonight. “She only made one movie with him. I made four. I have more to say.”
Fonda’s frustration carries genuine weight. Her relationship with Redford stretches back to 1967, when the two first shared the screen in the film adaptation of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park — a project that had originally found Redford his breakout role on the Broadway stage.
Over the decades that followed, the pair went on to make three more films together, building a friendship and professional partnership that Fonda described as deeply personal.
“I was always in love with him,” she said. “The most gorgeous human being and such great values. And he did a lot for movies — he really changed movies, lifted up independent movies.”
“It Hit Me Hard”: Fonda’s Reaction to Redford’s Death
When news of Redford’s passing broke, Fonda did not hold back her grief.
“It hit me hard this morning when I read that Bob was gone. I can’t stop crying,” she said in a statement, according to People. “He meant a lot to me and was a beautiful person in every way. He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for.”
The rawness of that statement makes her frustration about the Oscars tribute all the more understandable — for Fonda, this was not a matter of ceremony politics, but of personal loss and decades of shared history.
Barbra Streisand, for her part, offered her own deeply felt remembrance of Redford following his death — rooted in their shared experience making 1973’s The Way We Were, widely regarded as one of the most iconic romantic films in Hollywood history.
“Every day on the set of The Way We Were was exciting, intense and pure joy,” Streisand said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “We were such opposites: he was from the world of horses; I was allergic to them! Yet, we kept trying to find out more about each other, just like the characters in the movie.”
She described Redford as “charismatic, intelligent, intense, always interesting — and one of the finest actors ever.”
Streisand also recalled their final meeting with quiet tenderness. “The last time I saw him, when he came to lunch, we discussed art and decided to send each other our first drawings,” she shared. “He was one of a kind, and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with him.”
Robert Redford: A Hollywood Icon Gone at 89
Robert Redford died on September 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — a place that bore his fingerprints both literally and culturally, as the home of the Sundance Film Festival, which he founded and which transformed independent cinema in America.
“He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy,” his representative told Fox News Digital.
Redford left behind an extraordinary body of work, with career highlights including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting — films that cemented his place among the defining stars of Hollywood’s golden era.
Fonda’s remarks are unlikely to signal any serious friction between two of Hollywood’s most enduring legends. The comment had the texture of a joke — self-aware, affectionate, and pointed all at once.
But beneath the humor lies a real sentiment: that the intimacy of artistic collaboration cannot be reduced to a single film. For Fonda, four decades and four movies with Redford earned her a story worth telling. Whether the Academy agrees is another matter entirely.
What’s beyond dispute is the depth of feeling both women held for a man who, by every account, left an indelible mark on everyone fortunate enough to work alongside him.
