Billie Lourd: ‘The Last Showgirl’ Helped After Family Loss

Billie Lourd talked about how working on the movie The Last Showgirl helped her feel more connected to her late mom, Carrie Fisher, and her grandmother, Debbie Reynolds. At the movie’s premiere on September 7, 2024, in Toronto, she shared how much the experience meant to her while appearing with costars Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Billie Lourd Bigraphy

“I was crying a lot backstage, so sorry about that,” Billie Lourd, 32, said, according to Entertainment Weekly. “This movie was really important to me.”

Lourd thanked Coppola for giving her the chance to have such a positive experience.

Billie Lourd talked about how playing her character in The Last Showgirl helped her process her feelings about her mom and grandma. She felt like her character, Shelley, was like her grandma, and she got to explore her mom’s personality more deeply. It was a meaningful experience for her.

In the film, Shelley, played by Anderson, is a Vegas performer who has to adjust to life after her long-running show ends. Lourd plays Shelley’s daughter, Hannah, while Curtis is a former co-worker of Shelley’s, now a waitress.

Lourd’s mom, Carrie Fisher, was famous as Princess Leia in Star Wars, and her grandmother, Debbie Reynolds, was a Hollywood star known for movies like Singin’ in the Rain and How the West Was Won.

Carrie Fisher passed away in December 2016 from a heart attack at 60, and her mother, Debbie Reynolds, died the next day from a stroke.

Billie Lourd has openly talked about how hard it’s been to deal with losing her mom and grandma. In a December 2021 Instagram post, she described grief as a complicated process. She said her emotions are like a meal with different courses: bargaining, anger, depression, acceptance, and a bit of denial.

She added that grief can be all kinds of feelings at once. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve; it’s just about what you feel and how you deal with it.

On the seventh anniversary of her mom’s death, Billie Lourd shared on Instagram how she’s been dealing with her grief. She said each year brings different feelings—sometimes anger, sometimes tears, sometimes emptiness, and sometimes a mix of everything.

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