Barbra Streisand has revealed that she has a tiny mall in the basement of her home.
While promoting her recently released memoir, My Name is Barbra, the 81-year-old star gave Stephen Colbert a tour of her home in Malibu, California, which included a decked-out antique emporium in her basement. She told The Late Show host: “It’s a little, tiny mall, if you want to say.”
The talk show host jokingly presented her a coupon from “Bed, Babs & Beyond”, aiming to purchase one of her “very expensive” antiquities. The little mall reportedly includes a doll shop, named Bee’s Doll Shop, but the actor stressed to Colbert that “none of my dolls are haunted.”
The “tiny mall” also has a gift shop and a sweet shop that serves frozen yogurt and popcorn to guests she invites over for movie screening parties. She reportedly outfitted the space to store her treasures and trinkets, with each shop boasting a retro storefront that displays the collector’s items.
Back in 2010, Streisand first introduced her basement of wonders to the public in her book, My Passion for Design. She explained to Harper’s Bazaar at the time: “Instead of just storing my things in the basement, I can make a street of shops and display them.”
Her basement has since become something of a legend, with an array of celebrities giving their wildly different accounts. Ryan Murphy and Lady Gaga were reportedly invited to see her “collection of gowns from Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly!” and eat frozen yogurt. In 2015, Murphy recalled the experience to Vulture, saying: “We had dinner with Barbra and Jim, and Kelly [Preston] and John [Travolta], and Gaga and I, and after dinner, she said: ‘Do you want to see the mall?’”
“Gaga and I were out of that chair so fast,” he continued. “We went down to the mall and spent an hour down there. She pulled out her collection of gowns from Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly! And then she said: ‘Do you want frozen yogurt?’ I could write a whole book about that night.”
Colbert, in particular, was in for a treat as he acquainted himself with the Oscar winner’s impressive collection. The Broadway legend introduced him to her three dogs, which she has jokingly called clones of her beloved former pup, Sammy. Streisand told Colbert: “They only look like Sammy, but you cannot clone a soul.”
The Hollywood icon’s interview with Colbert comes on the heels of the release of her memoir, just shy of 992 pages and 60 chapters, charting the life and times of the star. Streisand shot to fame in the 1960s after her starring turn in Funny Girl, the role she originated on Broadway and won an Oscar for at just 26 years old. She went on to play the leading lady in beloved films, such as What’s Up, Doc? and The Owl And The Pussycat, as well as The Way We Were opposite Robert Redford.
She’s since become the second biggest-selling female artist of all time, with hits including “Evergreen” and “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough).”
My Name is Barbra was released on 7 November by Penguin Random House.
