Debbie Reynolds Biography: How Her 'Greatest Fear' About Carrie Fisher Came True [VIDEO]
Debbie Reynolds sadly had to have her biggest fear come to life this past week.
Reynolds had to grapple with the unbearable loss of her daughter, Carrie Fisher, this past Tuesday, an experience she had hoped to never go through. The 84-year-old actress then died one day after her daughter's death.
In Reynolds' 2013 autobiography, Unsinkable, she wrote about losing her daughter being her biggest fear in life, a fear that would chillingly come to reality four years later.
"It's not natural to outlive your child," she wrote. "This has always been my greatest fear... I don't know if I could survive that."
The actress continued, "Carrie is my child and I love her with every ounce of strength I possess."
Reynolds' comment about not being able to survive losing Fisher would ultimately come to fruition as well. Her son, Todd Fisher, was with her on Wednesday when she was rushed to the hospital after having breathing problems. Todd spoke on his mother's final words with the press:
"She's now with Carrie and we're all heartbroken," Todd stated. "She said, 'I want to be with Carrie.' And then she was gone."
Reynolds and Carrie's relationship was fraught with emotion for decades. After Carrie became successful through Star Wars in the mid-70s, she distanced herself from her mother. As Carrie explained to Oprah Winfrey in 2011, " We had a fairly volatile relationship earlier on in my 20s. I didn't want to be around her. I did not want to be Debbie Reynolds' daughter."
"It's very hard when your child doesn't want to talk to you and you want to talk to them, and you want to touch them, you want to hold them," Reynolds added. "It was a total estrangement. She didn't talk to me for probably 10 years. So that was the most difficult time of all. Very painful, very heartbreaking."
Carrie and Reynolds would reconnect eventually, and would later become neighbors. Their strong bond crystallized in the public eye in 2015, when Carrie presented her mother with the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. They will also be seen together in the upcoming HBO documentary Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.
