This is Sandra Bullock at The Lost City premiere in LA last night in a pink ombre Elie Saab with a sequin bodice and full feather skirt. This dress is wild and she paired it with thigh high boots and a tuxedo jacket! Her style has been wacky cool this entire press tour. I don’t like this look exactly but I appreciate the effort and the fact that it’s unique. She
came with her sister, Gesine Bullock-Prado. How cute are they together? Bonus Daniel Radcliffe looking like a snack.
Sandra Bullock gave a celebrity masterclass on handling a scandal when she was faced with her then-husband Jesse James cheating news, right after she won the Oscar in 2010. She kept quiet and then emerged about two months later with her new baby, Louis, on the cover of People Magazine. At that point she gave a somewhat candid interview about the process of adopting Louis. Sandra revealed that the adoption process took a few years and that she wanted to spend time with her baby before the press found out. She also denounced James’ antisemitism but did not talk much about his serial cheating, instead remaining cordial and referencing the life they shared. I mention this because I needed to review what Sandra said, even though I covered some of it. She doesn’t have talking points and when she gives personal details they seem fresh, even though she’s told us before.
In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Sandra confirmed that she’s planning on taking some time off acting now that The Lost City is coming out. She explained how she adopted Louis, now 12, and she also has daughter Laila, 10. She said she worries about her children in a way that non-white mothers have for hundreds of years. (She opened up about this on Red Table Talk last year and has said before that she’s a protective mom.) Here’s some of what Sandra said on CBS:
On adopting Louis right as she split with Jesse James
He was unexpected, he was not planned. I got a call one day ‘your placement is here.’ That was years after having filed. Years. I was handed a plastic bag and a child.On thinking of baby Louis when she won an Oscar
All I kept thinking about was ‘he’s at home.’ I didn’t care, I just wanted to go home. I was sewn in the dress. All I wanted to do was just go home and feed Louis. I ripped [the dress] and then I asked them to fix it. ‘I don’t know what happened. The beads came off.’On having a baby to care for during her split and divorce
How do you process grief and not hurt your child in the process? It’s a newborn they take on everything that you’re feeling. My obligation was to him and not tainting the first year of his life with my grief.On being a mother to Black children
My children are Black. I have a level of defense that millions of mothers have that aren’t white. I have an understanding of how scary it is. [cries] I get really emotional because I think of hundreds of years of women who’ve never been able to relax into motherhood. [Worried] in a way that we as white women have not had to worry.You worry about other things but if you really take a minute and think about hundreds of years of mothers not being able to enjoy freely the birth of a child, their son becoming a young man. All of those things represent fear and loss.
She confirms that she’s taking a break
I can be creative, I can be part of a community, but right now work in front of a camera needs to pause… I want to be at home.I would just love to clean out the basement. I have a room where all my sh-t goes for all the years, I want to go through it, I want to see if I remember any of it.
I don’t know what it’s like to have a non-white child. I can only imagine my son in a dangerous situation, every day, which is something so many people face just being out in the world. The news about scary high profile cases of racism and the way certain people react to that must be exhausting. I appreciate that Sandra is trying to educate people about that.
As for Sandra’s plans for her time off – cleaning out the basement, really? I have a lot of sentimental stuff in my basement and I do not look forward to going through it at all. At least Sandra can hire someone to help her with that.
Also Sandra has done a video interview with her daughter, Laila, and we’ve seen both of her children in candid photos, but she asked CBS not to air photos of them. She doesn’t want her children to be targets and that’s understandable.
So refreshing she didn’t centre their Blackness on herself.
Unlike Ellen Pompeo, for example.
Yes, I got a little nervous when I saw the headline, but Sandra didn’t make this about her, I don’t think. She acknowledged how many other WOC deal with these fears every day.
I don’t blame her for wanting some time off, though I am a little surprised at the timing. I kind of thought she was trying to do more of a “comeback” with her romcom.
And her children wouldn’t have been safe with Jesse James. It’s a blessing all around that she got out of that situation when she did. I’ll never understand how he conned her into marriage in the first place but I have so much respect for her I’ll just file that away under none of my business.
Still sad she stood by abd said nothing when Chelsea Handler was disrespectful and making racist jokes at Angelina Jolie abd her adopted children’s expense, children of color, yet these friends who had adopted colored children themselves said nothing, as long as they weren’t the targets. I just side-eye her abd charlize Theron another Handler friend.
Yes Chelsea Handler literally referred to a black child as a monkey because she had fake “beef” with the child’s white mother.
Not to mention all of Chelsea Handler other racist comments.
I didn’t know about Bullock’s friendship with Handler. I tend to think of her living in a Southern state away from the Hollywood fray. I don’t understand why this Handler person has any kind of career or fame. But it’s not too late for Bullock to say something about it and be contrite for her silence at the time.
@LOL you hit the nail on the head with that Hollywood hypocrisy you’ve described but we don’t refer to people as ‘coloured’ anymore. It’s very outdated/offensive.
I don’t judge people harshly for NOT coming out against something; it’s enough if they live their own lives honorably. People can have lots of reasons for keeping quiet that have nothing to do with supporting something. She could have had the flu, been out of town, had a sick kid, or just thought WTF but not want to make it about her. Really, we don’t need to be judge and jury every second, when we don’t ever have all the facts!!
@ nikki
What are you talking about?
The comments above are talking about Bullock and Theron having black kids and their friendship with CH after her racist remarks.
What does that have to do with someone be sick or having a sick child?
@Nikki – ITA that it’s hard to judge without knowing all the details. But I no longer agree that it’s enough to live your life honorably. I felt that way all through the Obama administration. I worked in a role that supported at risk students in a public university, coached former foster youth on job interview skills, and generally felt I was doing as little damage to this planet as I could. And then Trump was elected. And I realized that by not speaking out all those years -especially against the white privilege I observed every day in my workplace- my silence equaled consent. I will never be silent again. (And I hope that Sandra Bullock has come to the same realization.)
I think part of the reason Sandra went easy on Jesse James was that she had been raising his kids for almost a decade. I truly believe she wanted to (and maybe did) keep in contract with Sunny.
She had handled fame beautifully. I would have lost it when finding a stalker in my house!
I like Sandy in pink, this dress is wild. Not something I would ever have the courage to wear but it’s gorgeous on her and perfect for a premiere.
Regarding CH- surely will catch hell for this- but I don’t think that as the mother of black children that sandy has to take on every act of racial injustice that hits the news. No one has the bandwidth for that. Unless she was tight with CH- am i missing something? Because if they were buds then yes, she had an obligation to either say something and/or cut CH out of her life. Not defending CH, who’s an absolute garbage human and needs to fall into a dumpster fire somewhere.
I don’t think CH has the friends that she used to. Aniston, Bullock, Theron…I think all of these women don’t hang out with or socialize with Handler anymore. maybe they outgrew each other and maybe they came to realize that she’s kind of a terrible person and stopped.
After Chelsea made those comments and more on tv she was seen with Bullock, Theron and around their kids, which made me side eye them.
I’m really sorry to hear that. I guess I can see why Aniston enjoyed being friends with someone who did the dirty work of slamming Jolie for her, but there’s a line you do not cross. There’s no excuse at all for not stopping a friend from making racist comments, or any hurtful comments about a child.
People used to always say that she and Angelina and others collect black babies. But you know, speaking from experience, white people who want to adopt often just…end up with babies who aren’t white. That’s just a reality given history (white supremacy/slavery, imperialism, etc.). You also end up looking to adopt from a certain country just on the basis of what the requirements/costs of doing so are. There’s a lot of logistics to adoption that matter a whole lot more in terms of possibility…I don’t know anyone who has set some sort of racial preference for adoption. People have strong preferences about the type of adoption/access to birth parents, etc., but not the race of the child. I always thought this criticism of celebrities who adopt was so presumptuous.
I do have mixed feelings about interracial adoptions but in the sense of white people who take a non-white baby and choose to raise them in the middle of Montana, say, with zero access to their birth culture. But celebrities aren’t doing that.
Growing up, I babysat for a Jewish family who had adopted two black daughters. I never really thought about it at a the time. The girls were loved and cared for. I spent lots of time with them. I have zero idea what people thought in public with me walking these girls through playgrounds, malls, and movie theaters. But both children (they weren’t biologically related to each other) had spent years in foster homes before being adopted and experienced emotional and cognitive obstacles growing up. They went to specialized private schools and camps, but even now in their 30s have some challenges. I don’t know if it would have been better had they grown up with parents who shared their heritage or in a community where they were less of a minority. But I do know they wouldn’t have been better off aging out of the foster care system. It’s a difficult question.
In my country you do get asked if you have preference for a race or not. So when parents adopt a child from a different background it actually means they wanted a baby and to love it, no matter what the colour of skin.
I love Sandra. She really seems to get it – you can tell that she’s actually done the “listening and learning” work that so many claim to do. I can’t imagine what she must have gone through with learning Jesse James wasn’t the person she thought he was, all while having a newly adopted baby at home. Side note – James is a full on MAGA racist douche. I remember some disgusting stuff he posted after George Floyd’s murder. He appears to now have a gf who is his kindred spirit, ugh. I cannot imagine that man raising a black child.
Sandra’s Red Table Talk is GREAT.
Truly revolted to hear that she stayed friendly with CH after those disgusting comments were made by CH. WTF. Do better, Sandy.