New Yorker editor David Remnick called B.S. on Barbra Streisand’s claim that she can’t remember whether she ever had sex Warren Beatty, one of Hollywood’s most famously seductive heartthrobs.
Streisand made that claim in her recent memoir, “My Name is Barbra,” to which Remnick said to her in a new interview this week: “Possibly the greatest line in the whole book, to my mind, is you say you can’t remember if you slept with Warren Beatty. Now, I don’t think anyone has ever written that line in the history of sex, or Hollywood, or anything.”
MALIBU, CA – JUNE 02: Barbra Streisand attends the CHANEL Dinner Celebrating Our Majestic Oceans, A Benefit For NRDC on June 2, 2018 in Malibu, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)
The 83-year-old “Funny Girl” legend said about her Hollywood contemporary: “I know I slept in the bed with him, but I can’t remember if we actually had penetration. I swear to God, I can’t. There are certain things I block out.”
Remnick wasn’t having it, telling the multi-award-winning actor, singer and director: “I didn’t think I would ever say this in my entire life, but it might be that I’m calling (expletive) on Barbra Streisand. Is that possible?”
Again, Streisand insisted she really can’t remember ever having sex with Beatty, though she said they’ve been friends for decades, ever since they first met before either of them became famous — when she was 15 and he was 21 in the late 1950s.
Perhaps, Remnick should have reached out to the “Bonnie and Clyde” star to ask if he remembers having sex with Streisand. Then again, the 88-year-old Beatty has never been known to be ungentlemanly enough to dish about any of his sexual conquests.
US actress Annette Bening and husband US actor Warren Beatty attend the 73rd Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 9, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
It’s also possible that Beatty can’t remember sleeping with Streisand either because the Oscar-winning director and actor supposedly slept with a large number of women, starting as a young star in the early 1960s and continuing through 1991 when he married Anette Bening and slipped into a life of fatherhood and reported monogamy. During those decades, he was linked to more than 100 female celebrities, including Leslie Caron, Joan Collins, Natalie Wood, Julie Christie, Diane Keaton and Madonna.
“Warren has probably been with everybody I know,” Cher once said.
In 2010, Beatty’s biographer Peter Biskind estimated that the number of women Beatty had slept with could be as high as 12,275, according to The Guardian. In his book, “Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America,” Biskind said he arrived at this figure with “simple arithmetic.” He calculated the number of days between Beatty losing his virginity at age 19 to when he married Bening, and assumed that Beatty bedded a different woman each day.
Even though Biskind is regarded as a respected, accomplished film writer, his logic about Beatty’s sex life was considered questionable at the time, The Guardian said. And, Beatty refuted the 12,275 number in a 2016 interview with the AARP magazine.
WARNER BROS.
Barbra Streisand stars in the comedy “What’s Up Doc?,” which will be screened at SF Sketchfest in honor of its 45th anniversary.
Beatty insisted that his Don Juan reputation was wildly exaggerated and that he couldn’t possibly have had sex with so many women. “Think about it, sleeping with 12,775 people,” Beatty said, “not without a certain amount of glee,” AARP magazine reported.
Beatty said: “That would mean not just that there were multiple people a day, but that there was no repetition.”
But Beatty didn’t offer AARP a more likely number of lovers, even if just as a few hundred. The AARP writer asked the “Shampoo” actor why none of these women ever got mad enough that they decided to sell their story about him to the tabloids.
“Look, I never misled anyone,” Beatty told AARP with his famous charm. “And … and I’m a nice guy.”
Streisand certainly seems to think Beatty is a nice guy, as she told Remnick: “I know we’re still friends. Every year on my birthday, he calls me and we have a wonderful talk about our lives, our children, and so forth.”
