Barbra Streisand Reveals Rough Relationship With Her 'Jealous' Mother
Nov. 24 2018, Updated 10:50 p.m. ET
After years of stardom, Barbra Streisand has finally revealed her secretly rough relationship with her mother, who died in 2002.
The famed singer, actress, and director, now 76, told the Daily Mail that after her father Emanuel died of an accidental morphine overdose when she was only 15 months old, her mom Diana had to care for her alone.
"I think there are parents who don't really like themselves," Streisand remarked in the new interview.
"They don't like their offspring either. My mother meant well. She loved me as best she could. She had dreams of her own and she wanted to be a singer. She was jealous, and that was staggering for me to learn."
Streisand, known for her diva ways, added in the emotional interview about Diana, "She never praised me to my face but I have a feeling she praised me to other people."
"And she never hugged me or said, 'I love you.' "
The Funny Girl movie icon, who is married to James Brolin, said, "I'm more of a toucher than my mother. Now I'm older I can do it, but for a long time touching felt alien. I always felt, 'Why are you hugging me, what is this about?' I didn't understand it and it felt uncomfortable. But I owe her my career. It was painful on the way up. I was always trying to prove to her that I was worthy of being somebody. She'd say, 'Your voice needs strengthening. Put an egg in milk and whip it up.'"
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"She called it a 'guggle muggle.' It was disgusting," Barbra recalled. "Other people praised my voice but my mother would say, 'It's not good enough, it's not strong.'"
Streisand noted that her mother also had "a beautiful voice. When I was young we had a week's vacation every year in the Catskill Mountains in New York State, and that's when my mother hired a pianist so she could make this record."
The star added, "And we played it on stage so I could say, 'Ma, you finally made it. You're singing in front of thousands of people.' She always said she was too shy. I had a good voice too. On the block I was known as the girl with the good voice and no father. I suppose you have to go through these turbulent times. She motivated me to prove I was worth it."
Streisand never hesitates to sound off on her political views, but she hasn't talked much about her mother.
Now she doesn't mind looking back as she's been working on her autobiography for several years.
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