Josh Brolin credits stepmom Barbra Streisand with helping him stay sober.
The Dune actor, 56, spoke about his relationship with Streisand, 82, during his Wednesday, November 18 appearance on “The Howard Stern Show.”
Host Howard Stern congratulated Brolin on his sobriety — he stopped drinking alcohol in 2013 — and asked him about the time when Streisand balked at his request for a glass of red wine. The legendary actress replied, “But aren’t you a drunk?”
Brolin told Stern, 70, that he appreciates her directness and how much she cared. “I mean, we argued for years, you know, because she was very straightforward,” he said. “And probably reminded me, in some way, of a much more healthy version of my mother.”
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He added of Streisand, “She was this kind of, like, typical Jewish mother who was like, ‘You can’t do that because that would hurt you. You know, you gotta eat. You look too skinny.’ … She’s like, ‘Why would you drink? You’re an alcoholic.’”
Brolin said he “loved that level of honesty, regardless of my reaction. I’m like, ‘Look, you’re not gonna stop me from doing what I want to do. I’m an adult.’ And she was like, ‘No. You’re an alcoholic. I’m not gonna give you wine. Alcoholics can’t drink wine because it’s bad for them.’”
The Goonies star called Streisand’s blunt approach “a language that took me a while to learn and that I fully embrace now.”
Brolin is the son of actor James Brolin, who was known for TV shows like Marcus Welby, M.D. and films like Catch Me if You Can. James, 84, married Streisand in 1998.
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Josh’s late mother, Jane, divorced James when Josh was 16, after which he went to live in Los Angeles with his father. Previously, he grew up on a ranch in Paso Robles, California.
He opens up about his childhood, his addiction and acting journey in a new memoir, From Under the Truck, that will be released on Tuesday, November 19.
“I was born to drink. I was birthed to drink. My mother drank exactly like I did, and I was raised to be a man and drink like the male equivalent of my mother,” Brolin writes in the book.
He first tried marijuana at 9 and dropped acid at 13, leading him into a long road of substance abuse, particularly alcoholism. He tried to keep his drinking away from his two eldest children. (He shares Trevor, 36, and Eden, 29, with his first wife, Alice Adair. After a marriage to Diane Lane, which ended in 2013, Josh tied the knot with Kathryn Boyd. The pair share daughters Westlyn, 6, and Chapel, 3.)
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Eleven years ago, he recalled waking up hungover outside his house and remembering a fight at a fast food drive-through in Santa Monica. He picked himself up and went to his 99-year-old grandmother’s deathbed, where he was hit with the thought that he was at the midway point of her life.
At that moment, he decided to be sober. “I knew that was going to be the last time I drank,” Josh said.
