Sandra Bullock provided round-the-clock care for Bryan Randall

In recent months, rumors swirled that Sandra Bullock and her longtime partner, Bryan Randall, had broken up because he hadn’t been seen with her in Vancouver as she filmed her drama, “The Unforgivable,” in 2020 or when she premiered her comedy, “The Lost City,” at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas in 2022.

With news that Randall died Saturday at age 57, it’s now known that he probably couldn’t be by Bullock’s side because he was fighting a private, three-year battle with ALS, succumbing to the ravages of what Bullock’s sister called “a cruel disease.”

In a statement to the media, Randall’s family revealed that the actor-turned-photographer spent the final months of his life being looked after by “tireless doctors who navigated the landscape of this illness” and “astounding nurses who became our roommates, often sacrificing their own families to be with ours.”

Sandra Bullock’s Partner Bryan Randall Dies After Three-Year Private Battle With ALS https://t.co/sHVdg47aJW

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) August 7, 2023

More specifically, this care took place in Bullock’s homes in Malibu and Beverly Hills, the Daily Mail reported. The Academy Award-winning “Blind Side” star had been overseeing and funding round-the-clock care as Randall, the “love of my life,” stayed ensconced in her homes.

“He had been living in one of her Malibu properties for a while just because it was nicer for him to be there, by the ocean, and I think some people assumed they had split because it looked like they were living separately, but there weren’t,” a source told the Daily Mail. “She’d have the house stocked up with everything he needed, and his nurses would go there.”

In an emotional message on Instagram, Bullock’s sister, Gesine Bullock-Prado, praised her sister for being there for Randall as he struggled with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a fatal nervous system disorder that’s also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease after the Hall of Fame baseball player who was diagnosed with it in 1939.

ALS affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control which gets progressively worse over time, according to the Mayo Clinic. There is no cure, and the life expectancy from the time of diagnosis is three to five years. It begins with muscle twitching and weakness in an arm or leg, followed by trouble swallowing or slurred speech. Eventually ALS affects control of the muscles needed to move, speak, eat and breathe.

“There is some comfort in knowing he had the best of caretakers in my amazing sister (Sandra) and the band of nurses she assembled who helped her look after him in their home,” Bullock-Prado said.

Bullock, 59, first met Randall when he photographed her son Louis’ birthday in January 2015, People reported. They took their relationship more public later that year, including making an appearance at Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux’s wedding.

Bullock called Randall “the love of my life” during a December 2021 appearance on Red Table Talk, People said. She also talked about how they shared three children, Randall’s older daughter from a prior relationship and her adopted children, Louis, 13, and Laila, 11. Bullock explained how Randall stepped up as a parental figure when she finalized Laila’s adoption in 2015.

“His whole life had been unraveled because of me,” Bullock said, also explaining how Randall was thrust into the spotlight after their relationship was made public. “He was so happy, but he was scared.”

Photos emerged Tuesday that showed Bullock and Randall exchanging vows in an intimate ceremony in front of family and friends on a beach in the Bahamas in 2017, the Daily Mail reported.

But officially, the couple never married. Bullock’s first and only marriage to motorcycle builder and “Monster Garage” host Jesse James ended after several women came forward in March 2010, shortly after she won her Oscar for “The Blind Side,” to claim they had affairs with him. Bullock’s divorce from James was finalized the following June.

When it came to Randall, Bullock said on Red Table Talk that they didn’t need “a piece of paper” to be devoted to each other.  “I don’t need to be told to be ever present in the hardest of times,” she said. “I don’t need to be told to weather a storm with a good man.”