At 89, Robert Redford Finally Reveals The 6 Women He Could Never Forget | HO!!

Robert Redford has never been just a movie star.
He was the movie star.

The golden-haired rebel with the quiet voice.
The Sundance Kid.
The heartthrob who redefined cool.
The filmmaker who reshaped independent cinema.
The man whose face launched a thousand magazine covers — yet whose heart remained a mystery.

For more than half a century, Redford carried the reputation of Hollywood’s most private leading man. He hated gossip, despised tabloid noise, and lived his life as far from the spotlight as fame would allow.

But now, at 89 years old, the legend has finally opened up — quietly, reflectively, and with the tenderness of a man looking back on the loves that made him, broke him, reshaped him, and stayed with him long after the world stopped watching.

These are the six women Robert Redford could never forget.
Not because they were famous.
Not because they starred alongside him.
But because they shaped the soul of a man who spent his whole life searching for meaning far beyond the Hollywood lights.

This is the emotional, untold story behind the icon.

1. Lola Van Wagenen — The First Love Who Never Left His Soul

Before the fame.
Before Sundance.
Before the world knew the name Robert Redford…

There was Lola Van Wagenen.

She wasn’t an actress.
She wasn’t chasing fame.
She was a brilliant young historian — grounded, unpretentious, and uninterested in Hollywood glamour.

And Redford fell for her in a way only a young man with everything to prove can fall.

“She believed in me when the world didn’t even know I existed.”

They married in 1958, years before Barefoot in the Park, Butch Cassidy, and The Sting would turn him into one of the biggest movie stars on Earth.

They built a quiet life.
Four children.
A home.
Hope.
Dreams.
And an anchor that held him steady through the chaos of a rising career.

But as his fame grew, the pressure grew with it.

Hollywood demands everything — every hour, every city, every emotional reserve.
And that weight eventually found its way into their marriage.

The travel.
The distance.
The expectations.
The loneliness of being loved by millions but rarely home long enough to breathe.

In 1985, after 27 years together, they quietly ended their marriage.

No scandals.
No headlines.
Just two people who loved each other, but who life had pulled in different directions.

Decades later, Redford still spoke of Lola with a softness that revealed everything:

She wasn’t just his first wife.
She was the woman who built the foundation beneath his entire life.

And foundations, even when separated from, leave marks that time can never erase.

2. Natalie Wood — The Spark That Haunted Him Forever

If Lola was his anchor, Natalie Wood was the spark that burned brightly — too brightly — in the smoke-filled haze of 1960s Hollywood.

When Redford first met Natalie, she was already royalty:

child star of Miracle on 34th Street

teen icon

one of the most captivating beauties ever to grace a screen

Redford was rising fast, but he wasn’t yet the legend he would become.
To him, Natalie was both a colleague and an enigma.

They starred together in:

Inside Daisy Clover (1965)

This Property Is Condemned (1966)

And the chemistry was undeniable — electric, effortless, intoxicating.

On screen, they set fire to every scene.
Offscreen, whispers began.

Not of scandal — but of something unspoken.

Something tender.

Something fragile.

Something that didn’t need labels to exist.

Redford admired her deeply.

He saw the girl behind the glow — the pressure, the loneliness, the exhaustion of growing up with cameras always watching.

He recognized her pain because he was beginning to understand his own.

When Natalie Wood died tragically in 1981, Redford rarely spoke publicly about it.

But friends said he was shaken.

A light had gone out.

And a memory he had kept quietly tucked away became a wound that never truly healed.

She was not his forever love.

But she was unforgettable.

3. Barbra Streisand — The Clash of Fire and Ice

Every Hollywood era has one legendary on-screen pairing that becomes bigger than film itself.

For the 1970s, it was Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand.

Their chemistry in The Way We Were (1973) was so explosive, so emotionally rich, that audiences were convinced something real was happening behind the scenes.

And in many ways — there was.

But it was complicated.

Barbra was fire. Redford was ice.

She lived boldly.

He lived quietly.

She poured emotion into everything she touched.

He guarded emotion like a locked treasure chest.

On screen, this tension made magic.

Offscreen, it made something neither of them could quite define.

Streisand later admitted she was captivated by him.

Redford respected her deeply, admired her talent fiercely — but he kept his heart hidden.

He had been burned before.

He had lived through loss.

He had learned the price of passion.

So when Barbra leaned in, he stepped back.

Not out of disinterest — but out of fear.

Their movie became iconic because it mirrored the truth:

Some love stories burn too bright to survive.

They never became lovers — but the world felt the love between them anyway.

4. Sonia Braga — The Flame That Nearly Consumed Him

By the late 1980s, Robert Redford had lived several lives: the Golden Boy of Hollywood, the renegade indie filmmaker, the political activist, the man who had loved and lost

Then came Sônia Braga — a Brazilian force of nature, all fire, rhythm, and unfiltered passion.

Braga wasn’t a starlet.

She was a powerhouse, known for:

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands

Kiss of the Spider Woman

A global magnetism that could light up a city

For the first time in years, Redford lost his calm, steady footing.

“She woke something up inside him,” said one friend.

She was chaos.

He was control.

She lived emotionally.

He lived analytically.

She brought heat.

He brought balance.

And together, they created a storm.

Their romance burned fast and burned hot — but flames like that cannot last.

Redford needed peace.

Braga thrived in chaos.

They loved intensely.

But they loved differently.

When it ended, Redford didn’t erase her.

In later years, he called her “a force of nature.”

And that’s exactly what she was.

Not the love he built a life with — but the one he could never forget.

5. Sibylle Szaggars — The Woman Who Finally Gave Him Peace

By the time Redford met Sibylle Szaggars, he had already lived through triumph, heartbreak, loss, reinvention, and emotional exhaustion.

He wasn’t the golden boy anymore.
He was a man searching for something deeper.

Sibylle, a German-born painter, was the calm he didn’t know he needed.

Her life revolved around nature, color, silence, and art — the very things Redford had always gravitated toward in private.

They met in the 1990s, a period when Redford had stepped away from Hollywood noise and spent most of his time in Utah, building Sundance and living quietly among mountains and trees.

Sibylle matched that rhythm.

She didn’t chase attention.

She didn’t crave fame.

She didn’t want to be part of the machine.

She just wanted him — the real him.

After more than a decade together, they married in 2009 in a private ceremony in Hamburg.

Redford was 73.

He wasn’t searching for passion anymore.

He was searching for peace.

And he found it in her.

To those who know him, Sibylle isn’t just his wife.
She is the closing chapter — the one that soothed the decades of chaos that came before.

6. Jane Fonda — The Love That Never Was, Yet Always Was

Few Hollywood partnerships ever felt as natural as Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.

From the moment they appeared together in Barefoot in the Park (1967), audiences fell in love with them — almost as much as they seemed to love each other.

They were: playful, flirty, witty, effortless

Every look felt real.

Every touch felt natural.

Every moment felt like destiny.

And yet… they were never lovers.

Perhaps that’s why they lasted.

They shared something deeper — a bond rooted in respect, trust, and a chemistry that didn’t need romance to survive.

When they reunited in The Electric Horseman (1979), the spark was still there.

When they reunited again for Our Souls at Night (2017), now older, wiser, and calmer, the world held its breath.

They played two lonely widowed neighbors who find comfort in each other.

But audiences sensed they were watching the love story that never happened — but always could have.

Jane once said she wished they had explored something more.
Redford never confirmed it.

But when they look at each other — even now — the truth sits softly between them.

Some loves aren’t meant to be lived.

Some loves are meant to be remembered.

The Loves That Built the Legend

Robert Redford’s life has always looked golden from the outside: the blockbuster roles, the piercing blue eyes, the Sundance empire, the awards the activism, the legacy

But behind the legend was a man marked by: grief quiet heartbreak childhood loss the death of a loved one the pressures of fame the ache of lives lived in silence

These six women didn’t just pass through his life.
They shaped it.

They taught him: love loss fire restraint peace longing heartbreak healing

At 89, Redford is not chasing stardom anymore.

He is chasing meaning.

He is choosing silence.

He is embracing peace.

In a world that once demanded everything from him, he now protects the only things that matter: nature art authenticity the memories of the women who shaped his journey

His story is not about fame.

It’s about endurance.

It’s about love that changed him.

Love that broke him.

Love that healed him.

Love that stayed long after the credits rolled.

And now, as he looks back at nearly nine decades of life, he finally speaks softly about the truth:

These six women were never just chapters.

They were the story.