Carrie Fisher, whose death I still have not recovered from, received a posthumous star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood yesterday. How that honor eluded her in life, I’ll never know. But appropriately, on May the 4th, General Leia joined Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and her mom Debbie Reynolds on the famous path. None of Carrie’s siblings attended the ceremony. The reason I know that is because Joely, Tricia Leigh and Todd Fisher all complained about it ahead of the event, pointing the finger at Carrie’s daughter, Billie Lourd, for not inviting them. Joely and Tricia Leigh issued a joint statement on Instagram, calling Billie’s decision “misguided” and claimed they’ve only been loving and supportive to mean ol’ Billie. Todd went straight to TMZ and said, “It’s heartbreaking and shocking to me that I was intentionally omitted from attending this important legacy event for my sister, Carrie.” So after having her uncle and aunts completely pulled focus from what was supposed to be her mom’s honor, Billie spoke up. She issued an official statement saying her uncle and aunts all capitalized off her mother and grandmother’s deaths while she was grieving, with no warning to her. And now, she said, there is no feud, there simply is no relationship. Here is Billie’s full statement:
I have seen the postings and press release issued by my mother’s brother and sister. I apologize to anyone reading this for feeling the need to defend myself publicly from these family members. But unfortunately, because they publicly attacked me, I have to publicly respond. The truth is I did not invite them to this ceremony. They know why.
Days after my mom died, her brother and her sister chose to process their grief publicly and capitalize on my mother’s death, by doing multiple interviews and selling individual books for a lot of money, with my mom and my grandmother’s deaths as the subject. I found out they had done this through the press. They never consulted me or considered how this would affect our relationship. The truth of my mom’s very complicated relationship with her family is only known by me and those who were actually close to her. Though I recognize they have every right to do whatever they choose, their actions were very hurtful to me at the most difficult time in my life. I chose to and still choose to deal with her loss in a much different way.
The press release Todd Fisher gave to TMZ and the posting Joely Fisher placed on Instagram, once again confirms that my instincts were right. To be clear — there is no feud. We have no relationship. This was a conscious decision on my part to break a cycle with a way of life I want no part of for myself or my children.
The people who knew and loved my mom at Disney and Lucasfilm have made this star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to honor her legacy possible. This moment is about Carrie Fisher and all that she accomplished and what she meant to the world. I’m going to focus on that. May the 4th be with you.
Billie is pretty clear in her statement, there’s not much to add. Obviously, the Fisher siblings are trying to whitewash their complicated relationship with Carrie now that she can’t correct them. I didn’t read any of their books, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn Todd absolutely exploited her death for his own benefit. I don’t know much about Tricia Leigh, but Joely I always thought was pretty solid with Carrie. However, they all clearly broke Billie’s heart when she was trying to process the loss of Carrie and then Debbie. To shame her for this publicly is all the evidence I need to tell me Billie made the right choice.
You’d think Billie’s statement would be the end of it but Todd just can’t help himself. He issued a rebuttal because an opportunist is gonna opportune:
We made every attempt to speak with Billie’s team regarding the invitation prior to making any public comments. Keeping the focus on Carrie Fisher, let’s put our differences aside for the hour long ceremony and move on from there. I was told It was a no go and why would I want to heighten level of emotion for his niece, going further to say if I showed up, she would not.”
I never capitalized on either Carrie or my mother Debbie’s deaths, and in no way meant to hurt Billie, and that is the truth. Billie’s father was well aware months in advance of my book, which, was a loving and truthful homage to the incredible lives, not deaths, of Carrie and mom and the 60 plus years I spent with them both.
Isn’t it Billie’s call to say whether Todd hurt her or not? Because clearly, he did. And passing the buck to Billie’s dad does not absolve anyone of blame, here. Lord, I had no idea how much Billie went through on top of the pain of losing the two most important women in her life. Of course I didn’t, because she was classy enough to keep her dirty laundry out of the press, unlike the Fisher kids who obviously grieved in dollar signs.
Photo credit: Cover Images, Getty Images and via Instagram
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