Jane Fonda joked that she deserved to pay tribute to Robert Redford over Barbra Streisand at this year’s Oscars because she has “more to say” about the late movie legend.
“I want to know how come Streisand was up there doing that for Redford?” Fonda, 88, playfully asked Entertainment Tonight during the Vanity Fair Oscar Party following the 98th Academy Awards Sunday night.
The “Barbarella” star then joked that Streisand, 83, “only made one movie” with Redford while she “made four” with him.
“I have more to say,” Fonda joked before gushing that she “was always in love” with the late actor.
“The most gorgeous human being and such great values,” she said. “And he did a lot for movies, he really changed movies, lifted up independent movies.”
Streisand and Redford starred together in Sydney Pollack’s 1973 romantic drama “The Way We Were.”
Fonda and Redford, meanwhile, starred together in 1966’s “The Chase,” 1967’s “Barefoot in the Park,” 1979’s “The Electric Horseman” and 2017’s “Our Souls at Night.”
However, Streisand was ultimately chosen to pay tribute to Redford in a moving In Memoriam segment at the Dolby Theater Sunday night.
The “All the President’s Men” star died on Sept. 16, 2025, at the age of 89.
“After I read the first script of ‘The Way We Were,’ I could only imagine one man in the role and that was Robert Redford,” Streisand said during this year’s In Memoriam.
“But he turned it down because he said the character had no backbone,” she continued. “He doesn’t stand for anything, and he was right. So many drafts later, Bob finally agreed to do it.”
Streisand, who also performed a moving rendition of the film’s title track, remembered Redford as a “brilliant” and “subtle actor.”
“We had a wonderful time playing off each other because we never quite knew what the other one was going to do in a scene,” she said. “I miss him now more than ever, even how he loved teasing me.”
As for Fonda, she paid her own tribute to Redford in the wake of his sad passing.
“It hit me hard this morning when I read that Bob was gone,” she said in a statement to The Post, via her rep.
“I can’t stop crying,” Fonda continued. “He meant a lot to me and was a beautiful person in every way. He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for.”
The Oscar-winning actress also posted a longer statement on her Instagram after Redford’s death alongside an image from “Our Souls at Night.”
Additional stars remembered during this year’s Oscars In Memoriam segment included Rob Reiner, Diane Keaton, Catherine O’Hara and Robert Duvall.
Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan and more than a dozen stars who worked with Reiner paid tribute to the late filmmaker and his impressive career while the theme from “The Princess Bride” played in the background.
Rachel McAdams paid tribute to Keaton, with whom she starred alongside in both 2005’s “The Family Stone” and 2010’s “Morning Glory,” as well as O’Hara and all the beloved actresses who passed away in the past year.
