Billie Lourd has spoken about helping her late mother, Carrie Fisher, and trying to ‘keep her alive’.
The Princess Leia actress died on December 27, 2016, aged 60, just one day before her mother, Debbie Reynolds, died from a haemorrhagic stroke, aged 84.
What followed was a global outpouring of grief, with Star Wars fans paying tribute at special gatherings, and Harrison Ford declaring her ‘one-of-a-kind’, while George Lucas called Fisher ‘our great and powerful princess’.
The Los Angeles County coroner ruled that Fisher died from ‘sleep apnoea and other factors’ after suffering a cardiac arrest. However, the exact cause remains unknown.
It was said that heart disease and drug use contributed to her death, with Lourd telling People magazine afterwards: ‘My mum battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life. She ultimately died of it.
‘She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases.’
Now, the American actress, 34, has reflected on losing both her mother and her grandmother within hours of each other.
Speaking to The Times, she began: ‘I watched both my mum and my grandma live these really big, extravagant, a little too crazy lives.
‘My grandma got into drinking, and my mum was famously into drugs. And I was aware of that when I was pretty young because my parents were not together, so I was home alone with my mom a lot.
‘I see how sweet and full of innocence my kids are, and it wasn’t like that for me.’
She then admitted that her childhood was also ‘a gift’ because it taught her ‘what not to do’, which is ‘sometimes the best thing to learn’.
‘So I was able to help my mum through a lot of it, and I did my best to keep her alive as long as I could,’ she added.
The interviewer insisted that it ‘wasn’t [Fisher’s] responsibility to keep her alive’, to which she replied: ‘I know, I know.’
Having starred in Scream Queens, American Horror Story, and, most recently, Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, Lourd has built up an impressive CV of her own.
Still, she’s shared that her mother and grandmother initially had reservations about her pursuing acting, as they ‘knew about the dark parts’.
Now, though, she carries her mother’s ‘energy’ with her, as she’s focusing on writing a book about her upbringing, following Fisher’s footsteps after she famously penned bestselling semi-autobiographical novels, memoirs, and screenplays.
‘My mum used to sit on a sofa in the backyard, handwriting her books and scripts on pads of paper, and now that’s where I write,’ said Lourd.
‘Her energy is still in the house. And that really is such a gift.’
Throughout her public life, Fisher was open about her substance addiction struggles, having begun using cannabis when she was just 13. By the time she was 21, she had tried lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).
Having been raised deep within Hollywood culture, Fisher was already a heavy drug user by the time she shot The Empire Strikes Back (1980). This included cocaine use.
And after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 24, a diagnosis she spent years trying to accept, Fisher turned to abusing painkillers to self-medicate her severe manic and depressive episodes.
At one point, she had said she was taking up to 30 pills a day as a way to ‘put the monster in the box’, as she described it.
Fisher had various treatments for her addiction, having overdosed in the mid-80s, which led to a period of sobriety that inspired her novel and the follow-up film, Postcards from the Edge.
She also spoke about her experiences in a one-woman show and her Wishful Drinking memoir, using wit and humour to help end the stigma surrounding mental health and addiction, for which she was highly praised.
Fisher famously declared that she was ‘not ashamed’ of her struggles, stating, ‘I am mentally ill. I can say that,’ to encourage others to seek help when they need it.
She told a crowd of hundreds at Harvard’s Memorial Church a few months before she died: ‘I’ve never been ashamed of my mental illness; it never occurred to me.
‘Many people thank me for talking about it, and mothers can tell their kids when they are upset with the diagnosis that Princess Leia is bipolar too.’
Lourd admired her mother for this, too, adding after she died that ‘she’d want her death to encourage people to be open about their struggles’.
Worried about drugs?
Frank offers confidential advice about drugs and addiction (email frank@talktofrank.com, message 82111 or call 0300 123 6600) or the NHS has information about getting help.
Adfam has local groups for families affected by drugs and alcohol and DrugFam offers phone and email support to people affected by other people’s drug or alcohol misuse.