US actress Octavia Spencer said fellow Academy Award-winner Sandra Bullock “lost her soulmate” after the death of long-term partner Bryan Randall.
The Help star paid tribute to the “talented and handsome” photographer, days after Mr Randall’s family announced he had died at the age of 57, three years after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Spencer and Bullock appeared on screen together in 1996 film A Time To Kill, before returning to share the screen in popular action comedy Miss Congeniality 2: Armed And Fabulous in 2005.
“My heart is broken for Sandy and Bryan,” Spencer wrote on Instagram.
“Sandy lost her soulmate and the world lost a talented, handsome, all around good guy! My prayers and condolences to their families.”
The 53-year-old continued: “In heaven, there’s a tiny little lady up there who looks an awful lot like me bossing the Angels around. Especially Gabriel.
“She’ll get him to play any song you want to hear. Give her a kiss from me.”
Spencer also hash tagged the words “soulmates” and “ALS” in her post.
Bullock, who won an Oscar for her role in 2009 sporting drama The Blind Side, reportedly first met Mr Randall when he photographed her adopted son Louis’s birthday in January 2015.
On Monday, Mr Randall’s family shared a statement announcing he had “passed away peacefully” on August 5th after a “three-year battle” with the form of motor neurone disease.
It said: “Bryan chose early to keep his journey with ALS private and those of us who cared for him did our best to honour his request.
“We are immensely grateful to the tireless doctors who navigated the landscape of this illness with us and to the astounding nurses who became our roommates, often sacrificing their own families to be with ours.
“At this time we ask for privacy to grieve and to come to terms with the impossibility of saying goodbye to Bryan.”
ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, according to the ALS association website.
