Singer Says Carrie Fisher's Daughter Blames Him for Death

'You're Beautiful' performer James Blunt says he'd do drugs with Fisher in 'different approach' to her addiction
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 30, 2023 1:57 PM CDT
Singer Says Carrie Fisher's Daughter Blames Him for Death
Singer James Blunt arrives at the NRJ Music Awards on Dec. 14, 2013, in Cannes, France.   (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)

Carrie Fisher died almost seven years ago, but another celebrity is now saying that Fisher's daughter blames him for the Star Wars actor's death. "You're Beautiful" singer James Blunt is out with a new memoir, Loosely Based on a Made-Up Story, and in it, he addresses her death and his ties to her. The BBC notes that Blunt wrote his most famous tune while staying at Fisher's home, and that he called Fisher his "American mother"; he also made Fisher the godmother to his son.

Per HuffPost, Blunt was with Fisher in London in December 2016, the night before she was found unresponsive on a plane back to Los Angeles. She died a few days later at age 60, with a toxicology report later showing she had cocaine, heroin, and methadone in her system, among other drugs. Blunt now says in his memoir that Fisher showed up at his home with an eight ball of coke on that fateful night, and that he now feels guilty he didn't try harder to talk her out of doing drugs.

That's because he'd previously done drugs with her, choosing a different tack than friends who implored her to quit outright. "I took a different approach and did them with her, pretending to myself that I would guide her to redemption one day—just not today," the 49-year-old performer writes. "As a result, ... [daughter Billie Lourd] blames me in part for her death, and no longer speaks to me."

story continues below

"It's a tough one," he adds in the book, per the BBC. "Some people will just do their thing and it's impossible to help them. But should one have tried harder? Yeah, I think so. Would it have been worth losing a friend by trying to help? Yeah, it probably would have been." Although the report on Fisher's death didn't offer a definitive cause of death, Lourd addressed it several months later. "My mom battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life," she told People in June 2017. "She ultimately died of it. She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases." (More Carrie Fisher stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X