In a rare interview with Variety, singer/actress/tweeter/liberal activist Barbra Streisand confirmed that at age 75 she’s still as dotty as ever. In the interview, Babs said that she’s convinced Hillary Clinton actually defeated President Trump in 2016, just like Al Gore beat George W. Bush in 2000.
She also blamed President Trump for the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. And years after it could have mattered, the diva unloaded on producer Harvey Weinstein, calling him “vulgar” and “boorish.” She also revealed that she had two of her three pooches cloned, prompting PETA to put out a statement condemning the practice.
This is one of my favorite cover stories that I've written for Variety. A two-hour rare interview with BARBRA STREISAND at her Malibu home. https://t.co/vqJ5XJYUTz
— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) February 27, 2018
“I really believe she won the election,” Streisand said, referring to Clinton. “I’ve talked to senators from Michigan and Wisconsin. I do believe, like I believed during Bush, they were playing with those voter machines. And [Al Gore] lost by 537 votes out of 104 million.”
It remains to be seen which senators briefed Streisand about the “played with” voter machines, but the possibilities include Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and Michigan Democrat Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters.
When the interview turned to the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., Streisand blamed Trump, suggesting his public comments somehow incited the teenager to murder 17 people.
“I think even that shooter was affected because Trump brings out the violence in people. He says, ‘It’s OK — rally, lock her up,'” the singer explained, reaching somewhat. “He embodies the nasty remarks he makes about other people. He’s a liar. He’s crooked.”
Streisand claimed she was unaware of the 30-year pattern of sexual abuse by Harvey Weinstein in Hollywood, but described a bad experience she had with him on the opening night of his Broadway musical “Finding Neverland.”
“I thought he was vulgar,” she declared. “He wanted me to come there on his arm and sing a song on the album,” Streisand continued. “I said, ‘No. I can’t do that.’”
After she refused, “he threatened not to work with her on future movies and said he wouldn’t be sending her any of his releases to screen at her home,” Variety reported. Streisand brushed it off.
“That kind of stupidity,” she told Variety. “So I thought he was a boorish guy.”
According to Variety, perhaps Streisand’s biggest reveal was the fact that she had two of her dogs — Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett — “cloned from cells taken from the mouth and stomach of her beloved 14-year-old dog Samantha, who died in 2017.” A third pooch — Miss Fanny — is a distant cousin.
“They have different personalities,” Streisand explained. “I’m waiting for them to get older so I can see if they have her brown eyes and her seriousness.”
Barbra Streisand cloned her dead dog twice https://t.co/uN0f8Xdf0Q pic.twitter.com/VrkvQ6gakB
— Variety (@Variety) February 27, 2018
PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said:
We all want our beloved dogs to live forever, but while it may sound like a good idea, cloning doesn’t achieve that — instead, it creates a new and different dog who has only the physical characteristics of the original. Animals’ personalities, quirks, and very ‘essence’ simply cannot be replicated, and when you consider that millions of wonderful adoptable dogs are languishing in animal shelters every year or dying in terrifying ways when abandoned, you realize that cloning adds to the homeless-animal population crisis. And because cloning has a high failure rate, many dogs are caged and tormented for every birth that actually occurs — so that’s not fair to them, despite the best intentions. We feel Barbra’s grief at losing her beloved dog but would also love to have talked her out of cloning.
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