The Moment
Billie Lourd is marking nine years without her mom, Carrie Fisher, and somehow making Instagram feel like a real wake instead of a performance.
On Dec. 27, the 33-year-old actress shared a throwback photo with her parents, Carrie Fisher and talent agent Bryan Lourd, alongside a new shot of her dad with her two kids, Kingston and Jackson. Both photos were taken in the same room, 25 years apart, which is the kind of emotional detail that hits you right in the Star Wars-loving heart.
“It has been 9 years since my mom died,” Billie wrote, before describing a happy moment she had with her 3-year-old daughter, Jackson, and how that joy wouldn’t exist without her mom.
“This joy only exists because she existed,” she continued, adding that even though Carrie isn’t physically part of these memories, she’s still the reason for them. In Billie’s words, her grief has taken the shape of this “bittersweet grieful joy” she feels watching her kids with her dad.
She also quoted one of Carrie’s famously sharp one-liners: “Nothing is ever really over. Just over there.” Then she brought it home: “My mom’s life isn’t really over. Just over there – in my kids and in this joy I’m able to experience because of her. Thank you momby. I will never stop missing you.”
The Take
I don’t say this lightly: Billie Lourd might be quietly rewriting how Hollywood kids talk about grief.
We’re used to celebrity tributes that feel like PR with better lighting. Black-and-white photo, carefully worded caption, comments turned off, done. Billie’s posts about Carrie have never read that way. They are messy in the best, most human sense: grief plus humor, love plus anger, devastation plus, yes, joy.
Her phrase “grieful joy” sounds like something your therapist would underline three times. It’s the opposite of the internet’s usual script, where you’re supposed to “move on” after a certain anniversary mark. Billie is doing something subtler: she’s saying, this never ends, but it changes shape. One day it’s sobbing in the car, the next it’s laughing at your kid who has your mom’s exact smirk.
For a woman who was born into a dynasty of Hollywood women – Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, now Billie – she could easily stick to safe nostalgia. Instead, she keeps reminding people that her mother didn’t just die, she died after a lifetime of battling addiction and mental illness, issues Carrie herself was radically open about.
It’s like watching the most honest sequel in a family franchise: Carrie made it acceptable to say, “I’m mentally ill and also hilarious.” Billie is making it acceptable to say, “I’m still grieving and also happy.” Same bloodline, new chapter.
And for a lot of people in their 40s, 50s, 60s who grew up with Princess Leia, watching her daughter mother two little kids while still talking to her “momby” online? That hits a strange, tender place between fandom and real life. It’s a reminder that even our pop-culture icons become someone’s grandma in old Christmas photos.
Receipts
Confirmed:
- Billie Lourd posted a public tribute on Dec. 27, 2025, the ninth anniversary of Carrie Fisher’s death, sharing two photos taken 25 years apart and a long caption about grief, joy, and her children.
- She described her feelings as “bittersweet grieful joy” and quoted Carrie Fisher: “Nothing is ever really over. Just over there.”
- Billie and her husband, actor Austen Rydell, share two children: son Kingston (born 2020) and daughter Jackson (born 2022).
- Carrie Fisher, daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, died on Dec. 27, 2016, at age 60, after going into cardiac arrest on a flight to Los Angeles and later falling into a coma.
- The Los Angeles County coroner’s report later found cocaine and traces of other substances in Fisher’s system at the time of her death, with sleep apnea and heart disease also noted as factors.
- In a 2017 interview, Billie Lourd said her mother had battled addiction and mental illness throughout her life and had been open about it in her work.
- Billie has marked earlier anniversaries with similar tributes, including a 2023 post where she said she felt her mom’s presence while holding her then-1-year-old daughter.
Carrie Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, delivers touching tribute to late mom https://t.co/OH2stLYWMG pic.twitter.com/1UWk3q0eC5
— Page Six (@PageSix) December 27, 2025
Unverified / Contextual:
- Exact wording and full length of Billie’s 2025 caption may vary slightly between screenshots and write-ups, but the core quotes and themes about “grieful joy” and her mom “just over there” are consistent.
Sources: Billie Lourd’s public Instagram posts (various dates, including Dec. 27, 2025); Los Angeles County medical examiner findings released in 2017; archived 2017 print interview with Billie Lourd discussing her mother; public records and industry bios on Billie Lourd and Carrie Fisher.
Backstory (For Casual Readers)
If you haven’t kept a running timeline of the Fisher-Lourd family in your head (some of us absolutely have), here’s the short version.
Carrie Fisher wasn’t just Princess Leia from Star Wars; she was also a best-selling writer and one of the most outspoken voices on bipolar disorder and addiction in Hollywood. Her mother, Debbie Reynolds, was the classic studio-era star from films like Singin’ in the Rain. Billie Lourd grew up as the third generation in that family, eventually landing roles in Scream Queens, American Horror Story, and even the recent Star Wars films.
In December 2016, Carrie suffered cardiac arrest on a flight and died a few days later in Los Angeles. The following day, Debbie Reynolds died of a stroke. It was a one-two loss that stunned Hollywood and left 24-year-old Billie without her mother and grandmother in less than 48 hours.
Since then, Billie has used social media and interviews to talk frankly about her mom’s struggles and her own grief, while building her own family and career. Her posts on the anniversaries of Carrie’s death have become an annual ritual for fans who still feel like they lost a piece of their own childhood in 2016.
What’s Next
Billie doesn’t seem interested in turning her grief into a brand, which might be why so many people trust her when she does speak up. Expect her to keep doing what she’s been doing: acting, parenting, and dropping these rare, disarming posts that remind everyone Carrie Fisher was a real person, not just a meme in white buns.
For fans, this ninth anniversary is also a reminder that the ten-year mark is coming. You can already feel the nostalgia engines warming up: more documentaries, more think pieces about Star Wars, more tributes to the women who built this Hollywood family. If Billie chooses to participate in any of that, her voice will matter – not just as Carrie Fisher’s daughter, but as someone who has learned to live with public grief in a very private way.
In the meantime, her phrase “grieful joy” is probably going to lodge itself into a lot of people’s vocabulary, right next to Carrie’s “Nothing is ever really over. Just over there.” It’s the rare celebrity quote that doesn’t feel like it’s selling anything except honesty.
And maybe that’s the real legacy here: three generations of women teaching the rest of us that you don’t have to choose between being funny, broken, successful, and heartbroken. You can be all of it at once – and post about it when you’re ready.
What about you? Do you find it comforting when celebrities share their grief this openly online, or does it feel too personal for such a public space?
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