In the latest episode of Red Table Talk, Sandra Bullock opened up about the challenges of co-parenting and the real reason why she won't be walking down the aisle to marry her partner, photographer Bryan Randall, anytime soon. (Or ever.)
"I don't need to be told to be ever-present in the hardest of times," Bullock said during the question and answer portion of the show. "I don't need to be told to weather a storm with a good man."
Bullock shared her co-parenting, marriage-free plans after a fan from Houston, Texas, submitted a question regarding her own personal situation. "I am divorced and now live with the love of my life," the fan's inquiry read. "We want to have children but I have no interest in getting married again. Everyone keeps telling me that it's unfair to the kids. Sandra, you are a role model to me so I need advice. Should I or shouldn't I?"
Bullock responded by sharing that she had been through the divorce process, too. In 2010, Bullock divorced her then-husband, Jesse James, after five years of marriage and a very public cheating scandal.
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"I am someone who went through the divorce process. I found the love of my life," she responded. "We share two beautiful children — three children, he's got his older daughter. It's the best thing ever. I don't want to say do it how I do it, but I don't need a paper to be a devoted partner and a devoted mother."
Bullock met her partner, Randall, in 2015 after he photographed Bullock's first child, Louis, at his birthday party. Bullock has kept her relationship with Randall and the details of their co-parenting private until recently, opening up about her decision to adopt then 3-year-old Laila, in 2015. Prior to bringing Laila home, Bullock shared that her daughter had been in three different foster care systems by the time she was 2 and 1/2 years old.
"When I met him I was like...," Bullock said, shrugging to show that she wasn't initially impressed by Randall. "We hadn't been together for that long, and I said, 'Hey, remember that NDA you signed when you photographed my son?'" Bullock said Randall responded yes, adding that his life had been "unraveled because of me." She then revealed that she told him that NDA still holds up, because she was going to be bringing another child home.
"He was so happy but he was so scared," Bullock explained. "I'm a bulldozer. My life was already on the track and here is this beautiful human being who doesn't want anything to do with my life, but the right human being to be there — to help me...and he is the example — the example that I would want my children to have."
The 57-year-old actor says that while she doesn't always agree with Randall, they both work to respect each other's beliefs and often realize they are saying the same thing, just in different ways.
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"There are two different ways of looking at things," Bullock explained. "If (my kids) can take away from that and if that is where they feel drawn to, then he’s the exact right parent to be in this position."
For her fan who asked if she should consider getting married before having children, Bullock had clear advice: "Think about what kind of parent he would be. Think about what kind of parent you would be," she said. "And what if something happened? Would you both be great parents to those children even if you didn’t make it as a couple? Think about the children first."
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