How Billie Lourd Felt After Reading Carrie Fisher’s Memoir About Her Affair With Harrison Ford

Carrie Fisher shared intimate details about herself throughout her life and career. One of Fisher’s biggest bombshells came one month before she died. In November 2016, she released a memoir called The Princess Diarist. The book consists of diary entries detailing Fisher’s affair with her Star Wars co-star, Harrison Ford. 

Before she released her memoir, Fisher shared parts of the book with her daughter, Billie Lourd. 

Carrie Fisher harbored intense feelings about Harrison Ford during their affair

Fisher and Ford’s affair began on Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope. When they met, Fisher was 19-years-old and fresh off of her first movie role. Ford was 14 years older than her and also had a wife and two children at home. However, the two actors eventually started seeing each other outside of work, without any cast or crew’s knowledge. 

“I wasn’t raised that way,” Fisher told Today about the affair. “But when you’re on location — this is something I discovered — everything is permitted.”

The sexual encounters between Fisher and Ford lasted the entire three months they filmed in London. Once shooting wrapped, Ford went back to his wife, and the co-stars maintained a professional relationship. While she described the romance as a “three-month one-night stand,” Fisher secretly had intense feelings for Ford. In her diary, Fisher fantasized about Ford leaving his wife to be with her. She said Ford didn’t know how much she loved him decades after the affair ended. 

“I don’t think, until now, [Ford] knew the intensity of my feelings,” Fisher told The Guardian. “Even in the diary, I don’t like to admit it because it’s a failure. No, it’s not a failure – it’s unreciprocated love.” 

Carrie Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, said this about her memoir about Harrison Ford

For 40 years, Fisher and Ford never spoke about their brief romance. They remained cordial and continued to work together on multiple Star Wars movies. While filming Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015, Fisher found her old journals about the affair. She decided to turn the diary into a memoir and believed enough time had passed for her to do so. 

Fisher said she read The Princess Diarist with her only child, Billie Lourd. While they went through the memoir for its audiobook, Fisher recalled Lourd being amazed by her mother’s vulnerability during that time. 

“She thought it was so emotional; she had never seen me like that,” Fisher said. “No one has. This is the most personal thing I have written.”

Carrie Fisher dedicated ‘The Princess Diarist’ to Billie Lourd

Throughout her life, Fisher gushed about being a mother to Lourd. According to E! News, Fisher considered Lourd to be her “most extraordinary creation.” Fisher’s brother, Todd, shared in his memoir that having a child allowed the actor to live longer for her daughter’s sake. 

Fisher often praised Lourd in her books. In 2008, the author released Wishful Drinking and shared how proud she was of her daughter. 

“To my DNA jackpot—my daughter, Billie,” she wrote. “For all you are and all you will be. I want to be like you when I grow up.” 

When Fisher released The Princess Diarist, she continued acknowledging Lourd at the beginning of the book.

“For Billie—for turning out better than I could deserve or imagine,”  Fisher wrote. “But please get a housekeeper. Vegas will always be there.”