Bille Lourd is remembering her “Momby,” Carrie Fisher, on what would have been her 66th birthday.
The American Horror Story actress, 30, shared a sweet childhood throwback of herself with the Star Wars icon on Oct. 21 and made it clear that her grief is still present nearly six years after her mom’s death.
“My Momby would have been 66 today,” she began. “I woke up this morning feeling like I should write some long wise grief advice caption like I know what the f*** I’m talking about. But then I realized even after 6 years I still have no formula or map on what to do on days like these.”
Lourd said a person can “never be an expert in grief” because “it is forever changing — the ultimate shape shifter.” She said you never know “exactly what to do or feel. And that’s okay. Whatever you feel is okay.”
She signed off by sending “love to all the ‘griefers’ (yet another billie lourd petition to make this a real word) out there,” reminding those coping with loss, “You are not alone.” Fisher — who played Prince Leia in the George Lucas film franchise and was a prolific writer, including about her addiction and mental illness — was flying from London to the U.S. in Dec. 2016 when she suffered cardiac arrest aboard the flight. She died days later with the official cause determined to be sleep apnea with drug use a contributing factor. A toxicology report determined she had multiple drugs, including cocaine and heroin, in her system.
Lourd was Fisher’s only child from her ’90s relationship with talent agent Bryan Lourd. Since her mom’s death, the actress — who joined her mom in the Star Wars franchise in the 2010s — has started her own family. She and Austen Rydell, who were married earlier this year, had their first child, Kingston Fisher, together in 2020 and currently have a second one on the way.
Last year on the New Day podcast, Lourd spoke of happy times with her mom, but also shared that she learned what not to do as a parent from Fisher.
“We laughed every single day, and she made my life so much fun,” Lourd said of her mom, who famously had no filter. However, due to Fisher’s decades of substance abuse and deep slides into depression, she said, “My main job when she was alive was taking care of her and making sure she was OK.”
She continued, “I was 7 [for some of it] and that was really hard and that’s why I grew up really fast — because I was her best friend… I was her mother, I was her kid, I was her everything. And that’s one of the things I’m learning not to do with my kid.
“There’s a lot of things that my mom taught me to do and then there’s a lot that is, honestly, it might be more valuable, of what not to do,” she admitted. “And that’s one of the things that I will not do to my son, is put this pressure on him that I had on me.”
