The Tragic Details Of Carrie Fisher's Daughter Billie Lourd

Oftentimes, children of celebrities have strained relationships with their parents. Thankfully, this wasn't the case for Billie Lourd, the daughter of actress Carrie Fisher, who starred in movies like "Shampoo," "Hannah and Her Sisters," "When Harry Met Sally," and of course, as Princess Leia in the "Star Wars" franchise. It was always clear that Fisher and Lourd had a close bond, and the mother-daughter duo even starred together in the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy, ensuring that their relationship would be forever cemented on-screen.

However, this doesn't mean Lourd had a perfect life. She may have had a loving relationship with her mother, but she has still had to deal with various struggles while living life as a daughter of Hollywood royalty. Growing up, she was exposed to her mother's drug addiction and mental health struggles. Furthermore, in recent years, she has been open about her grief since her mother and grandmother's eerily close deaths. Therefore, let's delve into the tragic details of Billie Lourd.

Billie Lourd was born to Carrie Fisher and Bryan Lourd in 1992. Fisher and Lourd started dating just a year earlier, in 1991, after her rocky relationship with Paul Simon finally came to an end. However, Lourd and Fisher's relationship didn't last long. They broke up in 1994, when Billie was just 18 months old. It's not at all uncommon for Hollywood couples to break up, but people were shocked when they learned that Lourd left Fisher for another man. In an interview with Daily Mail in 2011, Fisher reflected on learning that the father of her daughter was gay, saying, "I was humiliated and betrayed and I believed I'd somehow messed up. I don't know if I believed I made him gay, but I'd failed and that's all that really counts."

Even though Billie was very young when this happened, it's always hard for a child to grow up with separated parents. Thankfully, even though Fisher believed she failed at first, she eventually formed a close friendship with Lourd, which allowed them to peacefully co-parent Billie. Fisher continued, "It took a while to adjust, but then we started going on vacations — Billie, me, Bryan, and this guy he was seeing. That's how much we loved her. I wanted Billie to see we could be friends, because I never had that with my own parents." Even though Billie grew up in an unconventional household, it seemed like Fisher and Lourd did everything they could to give her a happy childhood.

While there wasn't much drama between Fisher and Lourd after they split up, there were other problems that Billie Lourd had to face on the home front when she was just a child. Namely, her mother's lifelong struggles with drug addiction and bipolar disorder. Fisher was open about this throughout her career, and told People in 2013 that she often worried about how it would impact her daughter's life. "I feel bad for my daughter. I don't want this spectacle-making illness to make a spectacle of me and, in so doing, her," she said.

Fisher continued, "Having had this illness my entire life, I accommodated it by developing a very big personality. Everyone thinks of me as eccentric, so it's hard to tell where I am on the [mental state] line. Unfortunately now it's hard for me [to tell]. It's totally a problem." In 2013, a video of Fisher in a manic state during a performance on a cruise ship surfaced online, drawing even more attention to her mental illness. Fisher claimed these manic episodes didn't happen often, but admitted she experienced something similar 15 years before the cruise ship incident. This would have been in the late '90s, when Billie was still a young child.

Based on her comments, it seems like Billie was always acutely aware of Fisher's darker secrets. After her mother's death, Billie told People, "My mom battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life. She ultimately died of it." Even though they seemed to have a great mother-daughter bond, watching Fisher struggle with addiction and mental illness while she was growing up couldn't have been easy for Billie.

In the years since Fisher's passing, Billie Lourd has revealed that she tried to help her mother battle addiction. This proves that, growing up, she did not sit idly by and watch as her mother dealt with her personal struggles. In an Instagram post from October 21, 2024, which would have been Fisher's 68th birthday, Lourd wrote, "I did everything in my power to help my mom get sober but sadly my mom couldn't ever escape her addiction."

While Lourd has never delved into details about how she tried to help her mother get sober, this was undoubtedly a difficult task for her. Addiction is a disease that affects not only the addict but also their loved ones. Therefore, even though she is not an addict herself, Lourd got to experience the horrors of addiction through her mother. This probably resulted in some traumatizing moments for Lourd, but she is at least grateful that her mom was always honest about her struggles. In the Instagram caption, she continued, "While she was alive she always shared the ups and downs of that struggle with others in hopes it would help them escape their own addiction. As an addict, being open about the struggle is the only way through."

Unfortunately, Billie Lourd confirmed that her mother had died at just 60 years old on December 27, 2016. A few days before her death, Fisher was transported to a hospital after she went into cardiac arrest during a flight from London to Los Angeles. The coroner's report, which was released in June 2017, ultimately revealed that her official cause of death was sleep apnea. Fisher's toxicology report also indicated that drugs like cocaine, methadone, ethanol, and opiates were in her system on the flight.

In the months following Fisher's death, Lourd did not ignore or try to cover up her mother's personal struggles. After the release of the coroner's report and the toxicology report, Lourd wrote in a statement to People, "I know my Mom, she'd want her death to encourage people to be open about their struggles. Seek help, fight for government funding for mental health programs. Shame and those social stigmas are the enemies of progress to solutions and ultimately a cure."

Because Billie Lourd was very close with her mother, Carrie Fisher, she was obviously heartbroken by her passing. Tragically, the final days of 2016 got even worse for Lourd after her grandmother, Debbie Reynolds, died on December 28, just one day after Fisher did. Just like Fisher, Reynolds was a famous actress who starred in movies like "Singin' in the Rain," "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," "Mother," and the "Halloweentown" series.

As The Guardian reported, Reynolds' son, Todd Fisher, confirmed her passing and claimed she died of a stroke. "The last thing she said this morning was that she was very, very sad about losing Carrie and that she would like to be with her again," he said. "Fifteen minutes later she suffered a severe stroke."

Losing her mother and grandmother within one day of each other likely created a whirlwind of grief for Lourd. On January 2, 2017, about a week after their deaths, she wrote on Instagram, "Receiving all of your prayers and kind words over the past week has given me strength during a time I thought strength could not exist. There are no words to express how much I will miss my Abadaba and my one and only Momby. Your love and support means the world to me."

Since Carrie Fisher's death, several books have been written about her life. Some of these books were written by her brother and half-sister, which created some drama within the family (more on that later), but one biography was penned by author Sheila Weller. In 2019, Billie Lourd and her father learned about the release of Weller's book "Fisher: A Life on the Edge." Because this biography was written without their involvement, Bryan Lourd issued a statement to Deadline on their behalf, which condemned the project.

The statement read, "A person named Sheila Weller has taken it upon herself to sell and write an unauthorized biography based on my daughter's mother, Carrie Fisher. I do not know Ms. Weller. Billie does not know Ms. Weller. And, to my knowledge, Carrie did not know her. ... For all the fans and friends of Carrie, I just thought it necessary that you know this information before you decided to purchase this book or consider what is being said in the upcoming press interviews Weller will do while trying to sell it."

The statement also emphasized that Fisher already told her life story perfectly in her own words through books like "Postcards From the Edge" and "Wishful Drinking." Billie clearly cares about being open and honest about her mother's story, so it's understandable why she was bothered that a writer with no connection to the family penned a biography about the late actress.

In May 2023, over seven years after Carrie Fisher's death, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. At this time, conflict between members of the Fisher family came to light when it was revealed that Lourd chose not to invite her mother's brother and half-sisters to the ceremony. As Todd Fisher told TMZ, "It's heartbreaking and shocking to me that I was intentionally omitted from attending this important legacy event for my sister, Carrie." Furthermore, her half-sisters, Joely Fisher and Tricia Leigh Fisher, released a joint statement on Instagram, which read, "For some bizarre, misguided reason our niece has chosen not to include us in this epic moment in our sister's career. This is something Carrie would have definitely wanted her siblings to be present for." They went on to describe their exclusion as "deeply shocking."

In response, Lourd issued her own statement to The Hollywood Reporter to explain why she decided not to invite them. She explained that her uncle and aunts did several interviews and landed book deals in the days after her mother and grandmother's deaths, accusing them of capitalizing on a tragedy. The statement read, "I found out they had done this through the press. They never consulted me or considered how this would affect our relationship. ... [T]heir 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 books Lourd referred to in her statement are "My Girls: A Lifetime With Carrie and Debbie," which was written by Todd Fisher, and "Growing Up Fisher: Musings, Memories, and Misadventures," which was penned by Joely Fisher. Lourd had an issue with the aforementioned Weller publishing a biography about her mother, but it's clear she also didn't appreciate her mother's siblings selling books about her so soon after her death.

The fact that Billie Lourd chose not to invite her uncle and aunts to her mother's Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony made it clear that she doesn't have a close relationship with them. In fact, it seems that she has been estranged from them since Carrie Fisher's death. On May 4, 2023, the same day as the ceremony honoring the late "Star Wars" actor, Todd Fisher told Page Six that he hasn't spoken to Lourd in years. He explained that up until Lourd released her statement, he and his sisters never had a clear explanation for why she didn't talk to them but respected her grieving process.

He said, "I respected that was her feelings. We now know that it really isn't about it. It might be entangled in this notion that somehow somebody is exploiting the death of her mother in some fashion." He defended himself against Lourd's claims that he profited off his sister's death, adding, "We find out the entire reason is that she's mad that I wrote the book or that somehow I made money out of this, which is, of course, not true." Lourd seems to still have a close relationship with her father and has started a family of her own, but it's clear she has completely separated herself from her other family members. After this very public back and forth between Lourd and her uncle and aunts, it's possible that they will never repair their relationship.

In the years since her mother's death, Billie Lourd has always been very open about her grieving process. In one specific Instagram post on the eighth anniversary of Carrie Fisher's death, she quoted novelist Anne Lamott and wrote, "[G]rief is 'like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly — that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.'"

This quote makes it clear that Lourd will likely never fully recover from her mother's death, which is unsurprising. In the same post, she emphasized that she always dreads the anniversary, writing, "I always dread this day. I spend so much time leading up to it thinking about how awful I'm going to feel. And my dread is usually right. I woke up this morning with a dark cloud over me." However, Lourd at least tries to look on the bright side and appreciate the things she has, such as her son and daughter. She added, "I feel all the things. The grief. The joy. The longing. The magic. The emptiness. The fullness. And it all coexists in a profound way."

Speaking of Billie Lourd's children, she revealed that she had to explain how her own mother Carrie Fisher died to her son, who was born in 2020. Even though Lourd's two children were born years after Fisher passed away, the late actress will always be an important part of the family. Therefore, it's understandable that Lourd's son would want to know about his grandmother. However, this was obviously a very difficult conversation for Lourd to have, especially because she wanted to be delicate about the manner of her mother's death.

In an Instagram post on October 21, 2025, which would have been Fisher's 69th birthday, Lourd wrote, "The other night my son asked me how she died — I told him that she didn't take care of her body — telling him the truth without telling him the whole truth. 'Oh but I take care of my body!' Yes I replied, 'Yes you do! And I do too and daddy does too!' Death isn't looming at our doorsteps the way it always was for her. That's a conversation for later years. He didn't push me for more answers so we left it at that. But it broke my heart." Explaining the death of a loved one to a child is always difficult, so it's not surprising that this was a heartbreaking conversation for Lourd.

Through Billie Lourd's several social media posts reflecting on her mother Carrie Fisher's death, it's obvious that Lourd still loves her mother a lot. However, love can be a complicated emotion. Sometimes, you can get the angriest at the people you love. This seems to be the case for Lourd, who has admitted that part of her is still mad at her mother. In the same October 21, 2025, Instagram post, Lourd revealed that her conversation with her son about Fisher's death "made me mad at her."

She wrote, "It's weird being mad at a dead person because you don't really have anywhere to put the emotion. But it's still there and 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." It's clear that Lourd's mother's death still brings a whirlwind of emotions for her, but it's nice that she is always completely honest and open about what she is going through. After all, that's exactly how her mother lived her life. Through good times and bad, Fisher clearly taught Lourd that it's okay to be vulnerable about her personal struggles.