{"id":9356,"date":"2025-07-25T17:58:42","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T17:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/?p=9356"},"modified":"2025-07-25T17:58:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T17:58:42","slug":"james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html","title":{"rendered":"James Brolin Says This Blunt Comment From Barbra Streisand on Their First Date Made Him Fall in Love"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
barbrastreisand \/ Instagram<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After nearly three decades of marriage, James Brolin still laughs when he remembers the very first words Barbra Streisand ever said to him on their blind date:<\/p>\n

\u201cWho messed up your hair?\u201d<\/p>\n

It might not sound romantic, but for Brolin, that honest comment sealed the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat night was something,\u201d the 84-year-old actor told People<\/em> in a recent interview. \u201cI thought, \u2018This girl tells the truth right from the beginning. I\u2019m crazy about her.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The two Hollywood legends almost didn\u2019t meet at all. Brolin had been single for three years and wasn\u2019t looking for another relationship. Streisand wasn\u2019t sure about the setup either. But something pushed them both to go through with it, even after picking up the phone to cancel.<\/p>\n

\u201cHalfway there, we both picked up the phone to cancel, and something told us, \u2018No. Let\u2019s just do it,\u2019\u201d Brolin said.<\/p>\n

When Streisand saw Brolin walk in, she was surprised. She had expected someone with long curly hair and a beard\u2014how he looked on his hit show Hotel. But Brolin had just shaved his head. That\u2019s when she delivered her now-famous line.<\/p>\n

The couple met in 1996, married in 1998, and have been together ever since. According to Brolin, part of what makes their marriage work is Streisand\u2019s trust and generosity.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s very giving,\u201d he said. \u201cOne thing she does that some women have a terrible time with is asking, \u2018Where were you? That only takes 20 minutes. You\u2019ve been gone two hours.\u2019 She never asked me anything like that. And I just feel this incredible loyalty because of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cWith her, I love everything she does. People argue with her about her choices, and then in the end, when given enough time, they find out she was right in the first sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Streisand reflected on their relationship in her 2023 memoir, My Name is Barbra<\/em>, crediting their willingness to grow together:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the real reason our relationship has endured is that we\u2019re both willing to work at it,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

She also noted their different personalities: \u201cJim and I are very different. As he\u2019s said to me, \u2018You\u2019re an expert at looking for what\u2019s wrong, while I\u2019m just happy to wake up in the morning.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Streisand was previously married to actor Elliott Gould, while Brolin had been married twice before. But it seems that when God brought them together, it was the right time and the right person\u2014curious comment about a haircut and all.<\/p>\n

And after 27 years of love, loyalty, and laughter, it\u2019s clear their story is one that was meant to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After nearly three decades of marriage, James Brolin still laughs when he remembers the very first words Barbra Streisand ever said to him on their blind date: \u201cWho messed up your hair?\u201d It might not sound romantic, but for Brolin, that honest comment sealed the deal. \u201cThat night was something,\u201d the 84-year-old actor told People…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":462,"featured_media":9359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJames Brolin Says This Blunt Comment From Barbra Streisand on Their First Date Made Him Fall in Love<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After nearly three decades of marriage, James Brolin still laughs when he remembers the very first words Barbra Streisand ever said to him.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"James Brolin Says This Blunt Comment From Barbra Streisand on Their First Date Made Him Fall in Love\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After nearly three decades of marriage, James Brolin still laughs when he remembers the very first words Barbra Streisand ever said to him.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Stronger Marriages\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-07-25T17:58:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/413\/2025\/07\/Brolin-Streisand-04_credit-barbrastreisand-Instagram.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beliefnet Contributors\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"James Brolin Says This Blunt Comment From Barbra Streisand on Their First Date Made Him Fall in Love","description":"After nearly three decades of marriage, James Brolin still laughs when he remembers the very first words Barbra Streisand ever said to him.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"James Brolin Says This Blunt Comment From Barbra Streisand on Their First Date Made Him Fall in Love","og_description":"After nearly three decades of marriage, James Brolin still laughs when he remembers the very first words Barbra Streisand ever said to him.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html","og_site_name":"Stronger Marriages","article_published_time":"2025-07-25T17:58:42+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/413\/2025\/07\/Brolin-Streisand-04_credit-barbrastreisand-Instagram.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Beliefnet Contributors","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html","name":"James Brolin Says This Blunt Comment From Barbra Streisand on Their First Date Made Him Fall in Love","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/413\/2025\/07\/Brolin-Streisand-04_credit-barbrastreisand-Instagram.jpg","datePublished":"2025-07-25T17:58:42+00:00","dateModified":"2025-07-25T17:58:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/#\/schema\/person\/aea408b5be59bf6e05556b03859b6b79"},"description":"After nearly three decades of marriage, James Brolin still laughs when he remembers the very first words Barbra Streisand ever said to him.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/413\/2025\/07\/Brolin-Streisand-04_credit-barbrastreisand-Instagram.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/413\/2025\/07\/Brolin-Streisand-04_credit-barbrastreisand-Instagram.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"barbrastreisand \/ Instagram"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2025\/07\/james-brolin-says-this-blunt-comment-from-barbra-streisand-on-their-first-date-made-him-fall-in-love.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"James Brolin Says This Blunt Comment From Barbra Streisand on Their First Date Made Him Fall in Love"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/","name":"Stronger Marriages","description":"Navigating Faith and Relationships","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/#\/schema\/person\/aea408b5be59bf6e05556b03859b6b79","name":"Beliefnet Staff","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/author\/skirk"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9365,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9356\/revisions\/9365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}