The internet was thrilled this week when actress Anne Hathaway revealed that she is expecting her third child with husband Adam Shulman at age 43, with congratulations pouring in from far and wide and people praising the star for normalizing pregnancy in your 40s.
One of the most exciting well-wishers? One Barbra Streisand, who shared a personal pregnancy blessing for the couple, wishing them a hearty “mazel tov” on her Instagram grid, an honor reserved for a select and lucky few.
“To Anne & Adam,” she wrote, both as a comment on Hathaway’s Instagram post and as a separate post, “Congratulations on your pregnancy! Mazel Tov, Barbra,” and finished with a signature “xo.”
Babs shared the post with a photo of her and Hathaway, cradling the actress’s baby bump, with Hathaway wearing an airy white dress, not too different from the one in her baby announcement post.
“Did Barbra Streisand bless this new baby in person??” I excitedly thought to myself.
Turns out the answer to that is no.
The photo is from almost exactly a decade ago, when Anne and Adam were expecting their first child, Jonathan. Back in 2016, Hathaway was at the tail end of that pregnancy when she recorded a song with Streisand for her “Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway” album. The pair performed a cover of “At the Ballet” from “A Chorus Line.”
“Anne Hathway was perfect casting for the role of Maggie,” Streisand said of that recording. “When Anne came into the studio, I was so happy to see her looking radiant and flowing with no makeup but with the beauty of a woman about to give birth to a child.”
Daisy Ridley, who also recorded the song with them, said she was daunted to work with the two actresses who each won Oscars for their roles in musical films. Streisand famously won an Academy Award for the role of Fanny Brice in the movie adaptation of “Funny Girl,” and Hathaway won hers for her unforgettable performance as Fantine in the movie adaptation of “Les Misérables.”
Hathaway has been open about her struggles with infertility in the past. When she announced her second pregnancy with her son Jack, she shared that she was sending love to anyone going through “infertility and conception hell.”
“Given the pain I felt while trying to get pregnant, it would’ve felt disingenuous to post something all the way happy when I know the story is much more nuanced than that for everyone,” she told Vanity Fair in 2024.
This time, the “Princess Diaries” star shared a much more succinct announcement: a video revealing her joyous baby bump set to the tune of Barbara Lewis’s “Baby, I’m Yours.” (We’d be remiss not to mention that Streisand also has a couple of tunes that would be great to set your baby announcement to — including “Baby Me Baby.” Hathaway could also definitely share the birth of her baby with the Streisand song “A Child Is Born.”)
Hathaway and Shulman, who is Jewish, met in 2008, and the “Devil Wears Prada” star knew right away he was the “love of my life.”
They are raising their children with Jewish traditions, and Hathaway paid tribute to her late Jewish mother-in-law, Jacqueline Banks Shulman, in the her role as Jewish mother Esther Graff in the 2022 film “Armageddon Times.”
“The hand of a Jewish mother will guide the rest of my life,” she said of Banks, sharing that she wanted the role “to capture the depth of that love and that connection.”
The couple got married in a private Jewish ceremony in Big Sur, using the same wedding planner that Natalie Portman did for her Jewish wedding with ex-husband Benjamin Millepied earlier that same year, also in Big Sur. And while that marriage didn’t last, Portman and Hathaway are once again on the same trajectory in their personal lives — Portman recently announced that she is pregnant with her third child, her first with her partner, Tanguay Destable, at age 44.
We wish Adam and Anne (can we call them that? or is that just for Barbra?) a very hearty b’sha’ah tovah. And if they’re looking for “J” names that work with Jonathan and Jack, may we suggest this section of our Jewish baby name bank?
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