Babs is honored as 'America's Mom' at her burial site.
Whitney Way Thore is giving fans a peek at her late mom's burial site. On Thursday, the My Big Fat Fabulous Life star posted a video of herself visiting the mausoleum where her late mom, Barbara "Babs" Thore, is interred.
In the Instagram video, Whitney showed Barbara's final resting place, which featured a plaque that dubbed the late TLC star "America's Mom."
"Loved by her family and adored by millions," the plaque read. "The love of my life, my sweetheart for 45 years. I'll love you 'til the 12th of never."
Whitney captioned the post by writing, "My mother was interred on December 17, 2022. This is the first time since Christmas that I've felt able to come back. I love you, Sweet Mommy."
It turns out, though, that Whitney was mistaken about when she last visited the mausoleum. In a Friday Instagram post, Whitney noted that "grief is weird" before further explaining the situation.
"Yesterday I posted about going to visit my mom at the mausoleum for the first time since December, and my dad walks in my room this morning and he's like, 'That's not the first time you've been,'" she said in the video. "He pointed out that he was there and then I came and met him and then we went together on Mother's Day."
"In fact, when we went on Mother's Day, I saw a teenager there with her father who was visiting her mother and she told me that they were fans of the show and they always watched it together and it was really meaningful for them. We had this wonderful conversation. We texted afterwards," Whitney continued. "Does grief just erase your memory? Like, I fully believed yesterday that I had not been there since December. Crazy."
Whitney concluded her video by thanking "everyone who's being so kind and supportive" in the wake of her mom's death.
"It really does mean a lot. That's such a wonderful perk of having this kind of community and doing the show and everything is being able to connect with people," she said. "Especially because most people my age that I know personally have not lost a parent, so it's really helpful to me to hear from people who have. I'm just really grateful, so thank you."
Barbara died from cerebral amyloid angiopathy in December. She was 76. Earlier this month, TLC unveiled the season 11 trailer for My Big Fat Fabulous Life. The early look at the season showed Whitney eulogizing her late mother at the funeral. Shortly thereafter, Whitney faced backlash for her family's decision to allow cameras to capture the somber occasion.
"I can let a lot of stuff roll off me because I've been dealing with this for a decade. When it starts to involve my family, it's a lot harder. When it starts to involve my dead mother it's the hardest," Whitney told ET, before sharing that it was her dad, Glenn, who ultimately made the call.
"My father wanted the funeral to be public and he wanted the public to come. He asked to post on social media. Nothing makes him happier than people loving my mother. He is so proud of her and so obsessed with her. She's a public figure. She was loved publicly and I want her to be mourned publicly," she said. "He compared it to Princess Diana and the Queen of England and other funerals that are public and it's true."
As for how Barbara would've felt about the decision to televise her funeral, Whitney told ET that her mom "would've loved it."
"I think my mom is the biggest star and I think if you know my mom, she was a ham," she said. "That's why we always joke that this is a vehicle for her. This job was literally, it was the biggest part of her life. She loved filming it, she loved doing it. She had the attention and she knows what our intentions are, she knows we're not trying to exploit her or making money off of her or anything like that."
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