In case you haven’t had a good cry in a while, Billie Lourd has your back.
As part of an emotional tribute for her late mother, Carrie Fisher, Billie just said that she is now “the keeper of Leia.”
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Billie Lourd is continuing to carry on her late mother Carrie Fisher’s “Star Wars” legacy.
In a revealing essay published by Time , the 27-year-old actress said that she is now the “keeper of Leia.”
Cue the tears.
It’s been just two years since Fisher passed away in what can only be described as a truly tragic incident.
That’s because Carrie passed just one day before her mother, actress Debbie Reynolds, had passed.
Suddenly, this left Billie without the two most important people in her life.
After Carrie’s passing, Billie released a powerful statement that spoke about the cause of her mother’s death.
“My mom battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life. She ultimately died of it. She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases,” she wrote.
Billie went on to describe how her mother would have wanted her death to encourage people to be open and get help for their mental health struggles.
Since then, Lourd has made it her mission to honor her mother’s memory whenever she can.
For example, on what would have been Carrie’s 63rd birthday, Billie posted this video of her singing one of her mom’s favorite songs.
Also, can we take a sec to talk about how amazing her voice is??
Another special way Lourd honored her mother’s memory was through that essay in “Time.”
In it, Billie began by admitting that she didn’t like Princess Leia while growing up.
Cue the collective gasp from Star Wars fans everywhere.
“As a child, I couldn’t understand why people loved Leia as much as they did. I didn’t want to watch her movie, I didn’t want to dress up like her, I didn’t even want to talk about her.”
“I just wanted my mom–the one who lived on Earth, not Tatooine,” she said.
It certainly didn’t help matters that some of the boys from her school fantasied about Princess Leia.
“My mom? The lady who wore glitter makeup like it was lotion and didn’t wear a bra to support her much-support-needed DD/F’s? They couldn’t be talking about her!” she said.
“I had to investigate who this person was they were talking about.”
It was once she finally watched the movies that she realized what all the Princess Leia fuss was all about.
“But staring at the screen that day, I realized no one is, or ever will be, as hot or as cool as Princess [expletive] Leia.”
That same year, Billie got even more insight when she joined her mom at Comic-Con.
“It was the first time I realized how widespread and deep people’s love for Leia was, even after so many years,” she explained.
“It was surreal: people of all ages from all over the world were dressed up like my mom, the lady who sang me to sleep at night and held me when I was scared.”
She continued:
“Watching the amount of joy it brought to people when she hugged them or threw glitter in their faces was incredible to witness.”
She described all the fan hype surrounding Princess Leia as “magical.”
“I realized then that Leia is more than just a character. She’s a feeling. She is strength. She is grace. She is wit. She is femininity at its finest. She knows what she wants, and she gets it. She doesn’t need anyone to defend her, because she defends herself,” wrote Lourd.
“And no one could have played her like my mother. Princess Leia is Carrie Fisher. Carrie Fisher is Princess Leia. The two go hand in hand.”
Billie went on to describe the pain she experienced from losing her mom just two days after Christmas and only one year before Carrie’s last Star Wars film, The Force Awakens came out.
Carrie’s passing also left Billie with the huge task of caring for her mother’s legacy.
“I inherited this weird, intimidating thing called her legacy. Suddenly I was in charge of what would come of her books, her movies and a bunch of other overwhelming things. I was now the keeper of Leia.”
While filming hasn’t been easy, Billie is set to star in the next “Star Wars” film, “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
Fans will even see Princess Leia in the film since Lourd explained that there was enough footage of Carrie to “write a whole movie” around.
Stars Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theatres on December 19.
