Octavia Spencer has shared a tribute to Bryan Randall, the longtime partner of her friend Sandra Bullock, following his death over the weekend.
“My heart is broken for Sandy and Bryan. Sandy lost her soulmate and the world lost a talented, handsome, all around good guy!” the Hidden Figures actor wrote in an Instagram post. “My prayers and condolences to their families.”
“In heaven, there’s a tiny little lady up there who looks an awful lot like me bossing the Angels around,” Spencer added. “Especially Gabriel. She’ll get him to play any song you want to hear. Give her a kiss from me.”
Randall died “peacefully” on Saturday following a three-year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, his family said in a statement to People on Monday. He was 57.
“Bryan chose early to keep his journey with ALS private and those of us who cared for him did our best to honour his request,” the family said.
His family asked for “privacy to grieve and to come to terms with the impossibility of saying goodbye to Bryan” and requested donations be made to the ALS Association and Massachusetts General Hospital in lieu of flowers.
ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. There is no cure, but there are treatments designed to manage symptoms.
Spencer and Bullock have been friends for nearly three decades, after meeting on the set of A Time to Kill in 1996. They went on to co-star in the 2005 hit Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous.
Bullock, 59, has been linked to Randall, a model-turned-photographer, since 2015, when he photographed her son Louis’ birthday party.