Billie Lourd is opening up about the dynamics of her relationship with late mom Carrie Fisher—and how it's impacting her as a parent today.
The American Horror Story star reflected on the "pressure" she felt as a young child while appearing on the Oct. 4 episode of the New Day podcast. Billie, who gave birth to son Kingston in September 2020, explained that due to her experience, she has learned "what not to do" when it comes to raising her young son.
"My main job when [Fisher] was alive was taking care of her and making sure she was okay," Lourd explained to host Claire Bidwell Smith. "I was her main support, and I was 7. For a lot of the time, and that was really hard and that's why I grew up really fast because I was her best friend. I was her mother, I was her kid, I was her everything. And that's one of the things I'm learning not to do with my kid."
In her 2008 book, Wishful Drinking, Fisher credited her "incredible" then-teenage daughter, Lourd, with being a "very verbal and watchful child."
"There's a lot of things that my mom taught me to do," Lourd continued. "And then there's a lot that is, honestly, it might be more valuable, of what not to do. And that's one of the things that I will not do to my son—is put this pressure on him that I had on me."
Before Fisher's death in 2016, the Star Wars actress opened up about her early years of motherhood amid battling depression and addiction issues. But as she put it, Lourd was the one who inspired her to keep her "wick lit."
Following the passing of her mom—and grandmother Debbie Reynolds just one day later in 2016—Lourd has seemed to forge her own path in life, outside of her lineage.
"I've always kind of lived in their shadows, and now is the first time in my life when I get to own my life and stand on my own," Lourd said in 2016, talking to American Horror Story co-star Sarah Paulson for Town & Country. "I love being my mother's daughter, and it's something I always will be, but now I get to be just Billie."