How Debbie Reynolds Felt About Carrie Fisher Revealing Her Affair With Harrison Ford During ‘Star Wars’

Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford had a three-month affair. The romance began when they filmed their first Star Wars movie together. After the movie wrapped, Ford went back to his wife and his two children.

Once Fisher and Ford ended the romantic relationship, the pair never spoke of it again. Fisher’s mother, Debbie Reynolds, didn’t know the affair took place. Reynolds learned of her daughter’s past when Fisher released her 2016 memoir, The Princess Diarist. 

Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds had an incredibly close relationship

On October 21, 1956, Reynolds and her former husband, singer Eddie Fisher, gave birth to their first child, Fisher. Two years later, Reynolds and Eddie welcomed a son, Todd. Todd was barely 1-years-old when Eddie left Reynolds to be with Elizabeth Taylor. Their marriage resulted in an infamous love triangle and caused Reynolds to raise her children alone primarily. 

Throughout the years, Reynolds and Fisher’s mother-daughter relationship often drew comparisons. Both Fisher and Reynolds had successful acting careers and started at a young age. The pair often spoke of their bond in interviews and appearances. 

In 2018, Todd released a memoir about growing up with Fisher and Reynolds. He wrote in My Girls: A Lifetime With Carrie And Debbie that Reynolds and his sister had a complicated relationship. However, Todd said Fisher and Reynolds were working on their relationship in their later years. According to Todd, Fisher and Reynolds’ relationship was so close that when Fisher died in December 2016, Reynolds couldn’t handle her daughter being “alone.” 

“Debbie Reynolds willed herself right off this planet to personally see to it that Carrie would never be alone,” Todd said of his mother’s death, which occurred one day after Fisher’s. “That had been her driving force all of Carrie’s life, including having me so that Carrie wouldn’t be an only child, and it continued to be her driving force when Carrie left.”

Debbie Reynolds didn’t approve of Carrie Fisher writing a memoir about her affair with Harrison Ford 

In his memoir, Todd opened up about the fallout from The Princess Diarist. The book from Fisher details her romance with Ford. Fisher wrote the memoir after the first Star Wars premiere. Todd recalled the memoir causing a divide between Fisher and Reynolds. Todd said Reynolds was against Fisher telling her truth to the world.

Before she died, Todd said Fisher admitted to Reynolds that she could’ve kept her diary to herself. 

“You’re right, I shouldn’t have told that story,”Fisher allegedly said to Reynolds. 

Carrie Fisher thought Debbie Reynolds was an ‘extraordinary woman’

Although Reynolds disapproved of Fisher publishing a book about her affair with Ford, the mother-daughter duo remained close. In a November 2016 interview with NPR,  Fisher praised Reynolds for her accomplishments as a Hollywood actor. Fisher also referred to Reynolds as her “role model,”  even though they bickered often. 

“She’s an extraordinary woman, extraordinary,” Fisher said of her mother. “There are very few women from her generation who worked like that, who just kept a career going all her life and raised children and had horrible relationships and lost all her money and got it back again. I mean, she’s had an amazing life, and she’s someone to admire.”