‘Star Wars’ fans rejoice! Carrie Fisher gets star on Walk of Fame.
Actress Carrie Fisher received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May 4th, otherwise known as “Star Wars” Day.
Anastasiia Riddle, USA TODAY
Billie Lourd is opening up about her grief and “bittersweet” joy on the 9th anniversary of her mom Carrie Fisher’s death.
The “Scream Queens” star, 33, shared an emotional tribute to the “Star Wars” icon in an Instagram post on Dec. 27. Fisher died on Dec. 27, 2016, after suffering a medical emergency on a plane. She was 60.
Lourd, the daughter of Fisher and talent agent Bryan Lourd, shares two children with her husband Austen Rydell. In her post, she wrote that she told her daughter on the morning of Dec. 27 “how much her grandmomby would have loved her” before she and her daughter went to breakfast with Lourd’s father, and “they ran around together like 2 old souls that have known each other forever.”
“Then I started thinking about how this joy wouldn’t be possible without my mom,” she wrote. “This joy only exists because she existed. So even though she is not physically part of this joy, she is part of the reason for it. Even though she is not alive she lives on through this joy.”
She continued, “My grief takes on many shapes — today, right now in this moment, that shape is this joy I get to experience watching my kids with my dad. It could and will change shapes multiple times throughout this day because grief is never just one thing but right now I am relishing in this bittersweet grieful joy.”
Lourd, who played Lieutenant Connix in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, closed by sharing a quote from her late mother: “Nothing is ever really over. Just over there.”
“My mombys life isnt really over,” she concluded. “Just over there — in my kids and in this joy I’m able to experience because of her. Thank you momby. I will never stop missing you.”
According to a toxicology report released in 2017, Fisher, best known for her classic role as Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” movies, had “cocaine, methadone, ethanol and opiates” in her system when she died. The actress had long been open about her struggles with substance use. In a statement after the toxicology report’s release in 2017, Lourd said her mother “battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life” and “ultimately died of it.”
Lourd got married and became a mother in the years since Fisher’s death. She keeps her mom’s memory alive and shares her reflections on grief with social media posts on all of Fisher’s birthdays and the anniversaries of her death each year.
In October, Lourd marked what would have been her mother’s 69th birthday in a post. She said she is “secretly jealous” whenever she meets someone older than her mom was when she died.
“I can’t really call it a wholly happy birthday cause she isn’t here to enjoy the happy,” Lourd said. “She never got to meet her grandchildren and see them grow into the magical smart hilarious kind creatures they are today.”
Lourde also opened up in the post about feeling “mad” at her mother, noting she told her son that his grandmother died because she “didn’t take care of her body.”
“I’ve had to learn to allow myself to feel all the things — mad at her for not getting sober but also sad for her that she wasn’t able to get sober but also happy that she existed at all,” she wrote. “So I allowed myself to be mad for a moment but then realized I also do want her birthday to have some happy in it.”
Lourd recently participated in a photoshoot for Columbia Sportswear’s new “Star Wars” collection, in which she transformed into the spitting image of her mom as Princess Leia during the Endor scenes in “Return of the Jedi.”
Speaking to E! News, Lourd revealed she showed her kids the 1983 “Star Wars” sequel for the first time last year.
“They were a little bit confused,” she told the outlet. “They’re like, ‘Wait, that’s my grandma?’ Like, ‘No, that’s Princess Leia, your grandma’s Carrie, but that’s Princess Leia.’ And they were just so enthralled. I sat behind them and cried while they watched it.”