She is a Hollywood giant with two Oscars, five Emmys and ten Grammys to her name.
But despite her glittering 60-year career, Barbra Streisand revealed she called Apple’s CEO to complain that Siri had mispronounced her name.
The actress and singer contacted Tim Cook through Apple’s computer assistant, who called her “Strei-zand” instead of the real “Strei-zand” with a soft “s.”
In her latest interview with the BBC, Ms Streisand said: ‘My name is not spelled with a Z. It is Strei sand, like sand on the beach. How simple can you be?’
‘So I decided: how can I change this? I love solving problems, so I thought I’d better call the head of Apple, Tim Cook, and he had Siri change the pronunciation of my name so it would be correct. That’s a perk of fame!’
In what she said was her last ever interview, Barbra Streisand told the BBC that she had contacted Apple’s CEO to complain that Siri had mispronounced her name
Ms Streisand told Tim Cook to report that Apple’s voice assistant pronounced her name with a ‘z’ instead of a soft ‘s’
Ms Streisand also admitted that she has not enjoyed fame or ‘had a lot of fun’, and is now focusing on her happiness and enjoyment at the age of 81, while wanting to ‘live life’.
“I want to get in my husband’s truck and just wander around, hang out, and hopefully take the kids somewhere near us when they come over,” she said.
‘They like to play with the dogs, we have fun.
“I haven’t had much fun in my life, to tell you the truth, and I want to have more fun.”
She said the “dream” of becoming famous as a child was more exciting than the “reality” of it.
‘I’m a very private person. I don’t like stardom,” she added.
Ms. Streisand spoke from her home in Malibu, where she lives with her husband, actor James Brolin, 83, to promote her autobiography My Name is Barbra.
The Woman in Love singer started taking pencil notes for her memoirs 25 years ago. The finished manuscript is almost 1,000 pages long.
Despite the star claiming her memory is fickle, the book details backstage rows, bewildered suitors and the time she fell from a London bus.
The completed manuscript for Ms. Streisand’s memoir, written over 25 years, is more than 1,000 pages long and includes details of behind-the-scenes feuds, suitors and the time she fell from a London bus.
When she was working on the Broadway musical Funny Girl, Streisand claimed that her co-star Sydney Chaplin would mutter “terrible” words to her.
She said: ‘It’s a painful story. I don’t even like to talk about it.
“It’s just someone who had a crush on me, which was unusual, and when I said to him, ‘I don’t want to deal with you,’ he turned on me and in a very cruel way, I think.
“He started mumbling under his breath while I was talking on stage, he was mumbling horrible words at me, like swear words, and he wouldn’t look me in the eye anymore.”
The experience contributed to the stage fright that kept Ms. Streisand from giving concerts for 27 years.