Oscars: Barbra Streisand Performs for First Time in Over 10 Years for Robert Redford Tribute

At the 98th Academy Awards, Barbra Streisand returned to the Oscar stage for the first time in over a decade to pay tribute to filmmaker and friend Robert Redford with a small snippet from the song “The Way We Were,” from the movie of the same name, which she sang during the In Memorium tribute at the Oscars.

“I’m thrilled that The Way We Were is now considered a classic love story, but a dark time in our history — the late ’40s and early ’50s — when people were informing on each other and subject to loyalty oaths,” said the Oscar-winning multihypenate. “Now, Bob had real backbone, on and off the screen. He spoke up to defend freedom of the press, protect the environment, and encourage new voices at his Sundance Institute, some of whom are up for Oscars tonight, which is great.”

“He was thoughtful and bold. I called him an intellectual cowboy, who blazed his own trail and won the Academy Award for Best Director,” said Streisand. “And I miss him more now than ever.”

“He called me Babs,” shared the icon. “I said, ‘Do I look like a Babs? I’m not a Babs.’ But the way he said it made me laugh, and many years later, we were chatting on the phone about the usual: politics, art… as we were hanging up, he said, ‘Babs, I love you dearly, and I always will.’ And the last note I ever wrote to Bob, I ended it with, ‘I love you, too.’ And I signed it, ‘Babs.'”

Barbra Streisand honors the late Robert Redford at the 2026 #Oscars pic.twitter.com/AXhfy06C8z

— clubheartbreak (@clubheartbreak) March 16, 2026

Streisand last performed at the Oscars on February 24, 2013, during the 85th Academy Awards. She sang the same iconic hit as part of the In Memoriam segment to honor the late composer Marvin Hamlisch.

Redford and Streisand starred together in the 1973 romantic classic The Way We Were. Directed by Sydney Pollack, the film featured the duo as opposites, Katie Morosky and Hubbell Gardiner, a couple whose relationship spans several years before eventually parting ways as their differing ideals and worldviews pull them apart.

In real life, the two remained friends, with Streisand presenting Redford with an Honorary Academy Award in 2002 and the Chaplin Award in 2015.

Everett Collection

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Redford died in September at age 89. At the time, Streisand remembered him in a social post. “Every day on the set of The Way We Were was exciting, intense, and pure joy. 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,” wrote the songstress.

“Bob was charismatic, intelligent, intense, always interesting— and one of the finest actors ever.”

“The last time I saw him, when he came to lunch, we discussed art and decided to send each other our first drawings,” she continued. “He was one of a kind, and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with him.”

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The 98th Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, took place on Sunday, March 15, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood and was televised on ABC and streamed on Hulu.