Billie Lourd accepted the star on behalf of her late mother, who became a cultural icon playing Princess Leia in 'Star Wars.'
The legacy of a cultural icon was honored on Thursday. Carrie Fisher posthumously received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame near the historic El Capitan Theatre from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. The late star's daughter, Billie Lourd, tearfully accepted the star on behalf of her mother. The day was particularly poignant since May 4 has been dubbed by fans of the franchise as Star Wars Day.
iHeartMedia personality Ellen K served as emcee for a ceremony attended by stormtroopers, R2-D2 and C-3PO, and scores of Star Wars fans dressed to celebrate and honor the late actress, who played the beloved Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy.
Fisher died on Dec. 26, 2016 at 60, after returning to the franchise to complete the Skywalker trilogy.
Mark Hamill told ET he was happy to be there for his late co-star. "She would love it. She would be here making us all laugh," he noted. "I'm determined not be sad because it's really a happy day."
During his speech, Hamill recalled meeting Fisher for the first time, saying, "She was so charming, so funny, so adorable, so wise beyond her years. I just couldn't believe it. And brutally frank. She started telling me stories, intimate stories about her family that I thought, 'Should I be hearing this?' But that was Carrie." She also had a wisdom that seemed to be far beyond what a 19-year-old should be expected to have."
Sharing that he initially believed it would be hard to "come up with words to do her justice," Hamill recited a note he'd written after Fisher's death. "I thought this is as relevant today as it was when I wrote it," he began. "Carrie was one of a kind who belonged to us all, whether we liked it or not. She was our princess, dammit, and the actress who played her blurred into one gorgeous, fiercely independent and ferociously funny, take-charge woman who took our collective breath away. Determined and tough, but with a vulnerability that made you root for her and want her to succeed and be happy. She played such a crucial role in my professional and personal life, and both would've been far emptier without her."
"Was she a handful? Was she high maintenance? No doubt, but everything would've been so much less interesting if she wasn't," he continued. "She [wouldn't have] been the friend that she was. I'll never stop missing her, but I'm so thankful we had her as long as we did. I'm grateful for the laughter, the wisdom, the kindness and even the bratty self-indulgent crap my beloved space-twin drove me crazy with through the years. So thank you, Carrie. I love you."
He ended on a bright note, saying, "I know it's sad that she's not with us today. That would've made it perfect. But she wouldn't want us to be sad. She'd want us to have fun. She'd want us to laugh. She had that sort of Auntie Mame ability to seize every day and make the most of every moment that she had. So thank you all for coming. Thank you, Billie. And thank you, Carrie Francis Fisher."
During the ceremony, Lourd recounted her experience growing up as the daughter of Princess Leia, admitting that she hadn't watched her mother's films until middle school. "I finally watched the movie I had forever considered too loud, and finally figured out what all the fuss was about... I wanted to hate it so I could tell her how lame she was," she joked. "Like any kid, I didn't want my mom to be hot or cool. She was my mom. But that day, staring at the screen, I realized no one is or will ever be as hot or as cool as Princess Leia."
"Later that year, I went to Comic-Con with my mom. It was the first time I realized how widespread and deep people's love for Leia was, even after so many years," she recalled. "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. Watching the amount of joy it brought to people when she hugged them or threw glitter at them, was incredible to witness. People waited in line for hours just to meet her. People had tattoos of her, people named their children after her, people had stories of how she saved their lives. It was a side of my mom I had never seen before, and it was magical. I realized then that Leia is more than just a character. She's a feeling."
Lourd praised the character of Princess Leia for being "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 rescue her because she rescues herself and even rescues the rescuers and no one could have played her like my mother."
The actress shared that after her mother's death, she has "fallen deeply in love with Leia and the entire Star Wars universe," going from the little girl unwilling to watch to "obsessive Star Wars fan."
"And I have now passed the torch, or in this case, lightsaber, onto my two children, Kingston and Jackson," she continued. "I feel so lucky that even though they won't get to meet my mom, they will get to know a piece of her through Leia and I will get to tell them that the little lady in the TV is my momby, their grandmomby. Leia has become like a family heirloom and not just for my family. I'm not unique. I went to Star Wars Celebration last year and saw mothers and daughters, and even grandmothers were still dressed up like Leia, even though my mom wasn't there, and I got to talk to hundreds of people about how much my mom meant to them."
The actress shared how she appreciates that fans' love for Princess Leia will continue to live on after her mother's death and "get passed on from generation to generation, just like my mom passed it on to me and I am now passing it on to my children and hopefully they will pass it on to theirs."
She also highlighted her mother's writing career, which produced seven books, her scripts and her "legendary tweets."
"I wish there was a little book icon for these Hollywood Walk of Fame stars that I could put next to her film one," she said. "Her books and candor about her mental illness and drug abuse have inspired people all over the world to speak more openly about their struggles. It's one of the things about her I'm most proud of. One of my favorite quotes of hers is 'Take your broken heart and make it into art.' And she did just that. And I hope to pass that torch, or in this case, lightsaber of wisdom onto the next generation of fans."
"I can't wait to bring my kids here when they're old enough to understand how cool it is," Lourd finished. "And finally, thank you to the fans again for loving her like I do. Congratulations, Mom."
The joyous occasion wasn't without its minor drama. The day before the ceremony, in a rare public statement given to The Hollywood Reporter, Lourd revealed she made a "conscious" decision not to invite Fisher's siblings -- brother Todd Fisher, and sisters Joely and Tricia Leigh Fisher -- to Thursday's ceremony because, among other things, they allegedly profited off her mother's death. Fisher's mother and Lourd's grandmother, the iconic performer Debbie Reynolds, died the day after her daughter at 84.
"Days after my mom died, her brother and her sister chose to process their grief publicly and capitalize on my mother’s death, by doing multiple interviews and selling individual books for a lot of money, with my mom and my grandmother’s deaths as the subject," Lourd said in the statement. "I found out they had done this through the press. They never consulted me or considered how this would affect our relationship,” reads Lourd’s statement. “Though I recognize they have every right to do whatever they choose, their actions were very hurtful to me at the most difficult time in my life. I chose to and still choose to deal with her loss in a much different way."
Todd published My Girls: A Lifetime With Carrie and Debbie on June 5, 2018. The following year, Joely published Growing Up Fisher: Musings, Memories and Misadventures.
Lourd, who is very private about her life and shares two children with her husband, Austen Rydell, added in a later statement, "To be clear -- there is no feud. We have no relationship. This was a conscious decision on my part to break a cycle with a way of life I want no part of for myself or my children."
Todd spoke with ET on Wednesday to address his niece's claims, stating that he takes "issue with what she said on every level. There was no money made on anything."
"I did one 20/20 interview, and I didn't charge for that," Todd shared. "I only did that because the pundits were making a big deal out of the fact that my mother died of a broken heart. And it was really annoying me because I didn't agree with that analysis."
"Then, months and months later, I wrote my personal memoir, called My Girls, which is a book about my sister and my mother and our life together over 60 years," Todd continued. "That book, it's an homage to them. And it's not about their death, it's about their life. There's less than one chapter about death."
When Todd was asked about being left off of the Walk of Fame ceremony guest list, he said he felt it wasn't something Carrie would have wanted.
"Well, given the fact that Carrie went out of her way to invite me to every single premiere she ever had, as I was always the plus one, including the final Star Wars premieres....it's very hurtful and disconcerting," Todd said. "Because there is absolutely no way that Carrie wouldn't want me there."
As for any possibility of a reconciliation in the future, Todd said that it would be "entirely up to her."
"I am big enough to say that I know that Carrie would want us all not only to be friends but to have a relationship," he said. "I would be always open to having a relationship with her, but if she doesn't want one, I certainly don't have any intentions of making an effort to force it upon her."
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