A complicated relationship.
The late Star Wars actress, Carrie Fisher, had a very strained relationship with her famous mum Debbie Reynolds – but they were very similar in a lot of ways.
They both shot to fame at the age of just 19 and became Hollywood royalty in their own rights.
However, they’ve always had a complicated relationship and have spoken about it publicly many times.
Carrie was the first born to Debbie Reynolds and her then-husband, Eddie Fisher, who was a very successful actor himself.
She detailed her life living with two famous parents in her 2008 memoir ‘Wishful Drinking’.
In the book, Carrie wrote about being over shadowed on the day that she was born.
She said the doctors and midwives were more interested in attending to her beautiful mum Debbie and attending to the needs of her famous dad Eddie.
She wrote: “Now, my mother is a beautiful woman. She’s beautiful today in her 70s, so at 24 she looked like a Christmas morning.
“All the doctors were buzzing round her pretty head, saying: ‘Oh, look at Debbie Reynolds asleep—how pretty’.
“And my father, upon seeing me start to arrive, fainted. So all the nurses ran over saying: ‘Oh look, there’s Eddie Fisher, the crooner, on the ground. Let’s go look at him’.
“So when I arrived I was virtually unattended. And I have been trying to make up for that fact ever since.”
“She didn’t talk to me for probably 10 years”
Carrie battled with drug addiction and checked herself into rehab at 28 years old.
In the ten years that followed, her and her mum were almost completely estranged.
Appearing on the The Oprah Winfrey Show, Carrie said: “We had a fairly volatile relationship earlier on in my 20s. I didn’t want to be around her. I did not want to be Debbie Reynolds’ daughter.”
Giving an insight into her own side of the story, Debbie Reynolds said: “It’s very hard when your child doesn’t want to talk to you and you want to talk to them, and you want to touch them, you want to hold them.
“It was a total estrangement. She didn’t talk to me for probably 10 years. So that was the most difficult time of all. Very painful, very heartbreaking.”
Thankfully, the mother-daughter duo reconnected in the later years of their lives.
They lived right next to each other and even had connecting driveways.
They collaborated on a HBO documentary about their complicated relationship called, ‘Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds’.
However, just weeks before the show was set to be broadcast, Carrie died after suffering a heart attack. She died aged 60 on December 27th 2016.
Her grief-stricken mum Debbie died the following day from a stroke at the age of 84.
Carrie’s brother Todd Fisher shared the heartbreaking last words his mother ever said to him.
He said: “She said she missed her daughter and wanted to see her again. I don’t think she meant it quite like that, but in 30 minutes she went to go see her again.”
Strained family dynamic is generational..
It has emerged that Carrie Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd has excluded Carrie’s siblings from a Hollywood Walk of Fame event that is to take place next Thursday.
The ceremony is in honour of her mum Carrie Fisher.
In a statement published by the Hollywood Reporter, Billie said she is sorry for having to publicly speak out and defend herself from what family members are saying.
She said she has decided not to invite her mother’s brother Todd and her half sisters, Joely and Tricia Leigh Fisher to the event and “they know why”.
A part of Billie’s statement read: “Days after my mom died, her brother and her sister chose to process their grief publicly and capitalise 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.
“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.”
“Let’s put our differences aside”
This news came to light after TMZ published a statement from Todd who said he was heartbroken about the situation.
He told TMZ: “It’s heartbreaking and shocking to me that I was intentionally omitted from attending this important legacy event for my sister, Carrie.
“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.
He also denied ever profiting from his sister’s and mum’s death saying: “I never capitalised 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.”
Unfortunately, it looks like family conflict has continued into the next generation of the Fisher-Reynolds family.
