Gesine Bullock-Prado, a TV chef and author, posted an emotional tribute to photographer Bryan Randall after his death was announced by his family in a statement to the US magazine People.

The 57-year-old, who had been in a relationship with Sandra Bullock since 2015, had kept his illness private.

Next to a photograph of Randall, Bullock-Prado wrote on Instagram: "I'm convinced that Bry has found the best fishing spot in heaven and is already casting his lure into rushing rivers teaming with salmon."

She went on to describe ALS as "a cruel disease", but said there was "some comfort in knowing he had the best of caretakers in my amazing sister and the band of nurses she assembled" who cared for him at home.

Bullock-Prado ended her tribute with details on how to donate to the ALS Association and Massachusetts General Hospital, in lieu of flowers.

ALS is the most common form of motor neurone disease (MND), and is generally known as MND in the UK. In the US, it is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, after the famous New York Yankees baseball player who was forced to retire after developing the condition in 1939.

MND is a progressive neurodegenerative disease which causes specialist nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord to stop working properly.

'We did our best to honour his request'

Randall's family said in their statement that he had chosen "to keep his journey with ALS private", adding: "Those of us who cared for him did our best to honour his request.

"We are immensely grateful to the tireless doctors who navigated the landscape of this illness with us and to the astounding nurses who became our roommates, often sacrificing their own families to be with ours.

"At this time we ask for privacy to grieve and to come to terms with the impossibility of saying goodbye to Bryan."

Bullock, 59, reportedly first met Randall when he photographed her son Louis's birthday in January 2015.

The Hollywood star is known for winning the Oscar for best actress in 2010, for her performance in The Blind Side, and was also nominated in 2014 for sci-fi thriller Gravity.

She rose to fame in the action thriller Speed alongside Keanu Reeves in 1994, with other film credits including The Net, While You Were Sleeping, The Proposal, Miss Congeniality and Ocean's 8.