Billie Lourd staying strong
Billie Lourd is staying strong in the wake of the deaths of her mother and grandmother.
The ‘Scream Queens’ star has had to deal with "two gigantic losses" after Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds passed away within days of each other in December 2016 and Carrie’s brother Todd is amazed by how strong she is being.
Todd said: "Billie is 24-years-old. She’s dealing with two gigantic losses. These two girls – my girls, my mother and my sister, were big, big personalities [with a] big influence on Billie, myself, many people.
"There’s a vacuum in the room and she’s feeling it and we’re all feeling it. It’s just that I’m 59 and I have no choice but to step up and put this stuff forward. I’m letting [Billie] breathe, you know? She needs to breathe. She needs to step back from all of this loss."
And the 59-year-old actor admits it was "heart-wrenching" seeing Billie have to deal with two big losses in two days.
He added: "When I was standing in the room the day after my sister died and we’re in the hospital and my mother was dying, I mean, I was more heartbroken watching my niece than I was for myself. It was heart-wrenching.
"The idea that somebody would have to deal with that kind of a loss back to back, moment to moment – I mean we’d just had this horrible loss and then here you are just a handful of hours later standing in a different hospital in a different room. It was astounding."
However, Todd knows the 24-year-old actress is built of strong stuff because of the great upbringing her mother, grandmother and her father Bryan Lourd gave her.
Todd told Entertainment Tonight: "She’s also genetically Carrie and Debbie. I don’t want to leave Bryan Lourd out of this. He’s an awesome father and if it wasn’t for him right now, we would be in a much tougher position. He has supported her beautifully.
"You take those genes, and I think you’ve created a pretty powerful gal … and she is a lot more like my mother even than Carrie. You know, she’s a little like Carrie but she’s a lot like my mother, which means she’s going to be another Molly Brown."
