Billie Lourd Remembers Mom Carrie Fisher And 'Stepmom' Princess Leia In Heartfelt Op-Ed

Billie Lourd has written a heartfelt tribute to her late mom, Carrie Fisher — and her "stepmom" Princess Leia — in an op-ed for Time. And in case you had any lingering concerns about the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga, this essay will assist you rest easy: The Rise of Skywalker has been in really good hands.


Maybe those hands weren't always good, though. Earlier into the essay, Lourd recalls avoiding the original Star Wars trilogy like the plague, writing, "My mom used to love to tell people that every time she attempted to put it on, I would cover my ears and yell, 'It’s also loud, Mommy! Turn it off!' – Or fearfully question, 'Is that lady in the TV you?'"


Nevertheless then middle school happened, and Lourd's male classmates began developing their own crushes on the sci-fi princess we've all fallen for at one point or another. That's any time Lourd's proper study of her mom's most renowned character first began: She just had to know more about this lady — her mom — whom those young teenage males were horny for. Trim wanted to hate it, she wrote, however staring at the screen that day, I realized no one is, or ever will be, as hot or as cool as Princess F-cking Leia."


And that's whenever she really began to appreciate all of the people who'd wait in lines to meet her mom, who'd tattoo Fisher's face onto their body, who'd name children in her honor. While she began to take pride in her mother's legacy, she recognized for the initial time how closely tied her mom and her "stepmom" truly were.


Lourd kept her thoughts to herself, pretending she didn't desire to follow in her mom's especially cool footsteps — up until one day, destiny came knocking. Fisher instructed her daughter that the Star Wars team wanted to be able to see Lourd in their audition room. "I pretended it wasn’t a big deal – I even laughed at the concept – although indoors I couldn’t think of anything that should make me happier," Lourd writes.


We know how that audition went; she got the role, appearing alongside General Leia Organa in 2015's The Force Awakens and 2017's The Last Jedi as Lieutenant Connix. "On our second movie with each other, I really attempted to take a step back and appreciate what I was doing," Lourd reflects. "I couldn’t tell her because she’d think I was lame, however getting to watch her be Leia this time made me feel like the delighted mom."


Around six months right after filming wrapped, Lourd recalls her mom's excitement that the next Star Wars movie — the one set to close out the current trilogy — could be Leia's movie. Not long soon after, her mom unexpectedly died of a heart attack.


"Losing my mom is the hardest thing I’ve ever been through," Lourd writes. "I lost my best friend. My little lady in the TV. My Momby. And I inherited this weird, intimidating thing called her legacy. Suddenly I was in charge of what would come of her books, her movies plus a bunch of other overwhelming things. I was right now the keeper of Leia."


As such, she had a mention in what would happen to General Leia in the film that was meant to be hers. And Lourd remembers the day director J.J. Abrams instructed her the news that would leave her "speechless": There was enough unused footage of Leia to still make her movie. "It was like she had abandoned us a gift that would permit Leia’s story to be completed," she recalls — a sentiment similar to what Abrams has echoed, once he posited that Fisher planned divine consent for the unused footage to be repurposed.


As for her own return to the franchise, Lourd writes, "I knew it could be one of the most painful, challenging things I would ever do, nevertheless I mentioned yes for her – for my mom. For Leia. For each person Leia means so much to. For each person Leia gives strength to. For my future kids, so someday they’ll have one more movie to watch that Mommy and Grandma were in with each other. So they can ask me about the lady – right now females – in the TV and tell me to turn it down because it’s also loud."


Lourd doesn't think of Leia as her stepmom anymore. Right now she’s my guardian angel," she concludes. "And I’m her keeper."