Jason Gould Reveals Surprising Thing He Learned About Mom Barbra Streisand in Her Memoir: 'It Was Very Honest' (Exclusive) 

Jason Gould is still learning new things about his mother, Barbra Streisand.

The singer-songwriter, 57, tells PEOPLE he read his mom’s November 2023 memoir. My name is Barbraand said he taught him at least one unknown fact about her childhood.

“It was interesting because I didn’t know that she was a little thief as a child,” he says. “I can’t remember what she said [in detail] but I didn’t know that about her.”

Streisand’s memoir touches on all the ups and downs of her life, including her divorce from Gould’s father, Elliott.

Jason Gould as a child with mom Barbra Streisand in 1969 Stanley Bielecki/Getty Films Collection Jason Gould Assesses Nepo Baby’s ‘Disgusting, Mean’ Talk: ‘I Had My Challenges’ (Exclusive)

Most of the book, however, was no surprise, he says, noting that he read “every damn page of it.”

“I thought it was very honest and well written. It was painful [parts] which was a little hard to read. We all have traumas. That’s the thing. Including me,” he says. “And the question is, ‘How are we going to cure it?’ So I’m definitely on that path.”

Jason Gould in Beverly Hills in November 2014.

Michael Tullberg/Getty

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“My mother lost her father when she was a baby, so it’s a big trauma,” he explains. “She had a stepfather, who was an abuser. It’s a huge trauma. My father’s mother had a huge trauma. How could that not affect him, and therefore me? How could my mother’s trauma not affect me? It has, even and in ways I’m sure they’re not even aware of.”

Gould, who recently published his Holy days EP, also recalls how his mother (81) shared his love for music from early childhood.

Barbra Streisand in Malibu in July 2023.

Kevin Mazur/Getty

“As a kid, I was always the kid who sat at the keyboard and made up little melodies, but I never knew how to develop them into a real song,” he says. “I never even tried to write lyrics until a little over 10 years ago, but it’s always been a part of me.”

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Still, he notes, music was “a part of me that I was afraid to explore because my mother was an icon in that world.”

“It was like, I don’t want to be judged and compared to her, so I kind of toned down that part of me, for a long time, until I couldn’t anymore,” says Gould.

“I had to go through a certain fear to be able to do that,” he says. “I kind of got my voice back.”

For more from Jason Gould, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere now.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education