“She’d been really mistreating her body”: Carrie Fisher’s Close Friend Unveils Upsetting Details About Her Star Wars Role
One iconic scene in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi is where Leia appears in a golden bikini when she is trapped by Jabba The Hutt. Many young men saw that scene and instantly fell in love with Leia and the actress who portrayed her, Carrie Fisher. Luke and Leia originally head to Tatooine to free Han Solo who was kidnapped by Jabba.
Years later, when the sequels took shape, Fisher returned to her beloved Leia role and acted as a mentor and guide to the next generation that would take the successful franchise to newer heights. The actress sadly passed away at the age of 60 in 2016.
Carrie Fisher’s Struggle with Body Image
The iconic Tattoine scene may have ignited many fans’ love for Carrie Fisher, but nobody truly knew what went on in the actress’s mind until now. To look that slim and beautiful back in the day, Fisher had to undergo a tough diet and exercise. She reportedly felt a lot of pressure to look a certain way and maintain her figure that seemed to charm millions of viewers.
Naturally, the pressure and all the negative emotions kept rushing back when she reprised her role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. James Blunt, a popular musician and a close friend of Fisher, recently revealed how Fisher was truly feeling in the midst of this industry focused on looks and beauty. At the Hay Festival, People reported that he said,
She’d been really mistreating her body, and she’d just got the job again of being Princess Leia in a new ‘Star Wars’ movie. [Carrie] was really on a high and a positive, but they had applied a lot of pressure on her to be thin. She spoke about the difficulties that women have in the industry, how men are allowed to grow old, and how women are certainly not in film and TV.
She really put a lot of pressure on herself, started using drugs again and by the time she got on the plane, she had effectively killed herself. They say it was heart failure of some kind, but she had taken enough drugs to have a really good party.
Despite being such a talented veteran actress, Fisher could not free herself from the chokehold of unrealistic standards in Hollywood. Just a year later after the film was released, Fisher suffered a cardiac arrest and lost her life.
As per Blunt’s revelations, it seems that it was indeed the pressure and stress that killed Fisher. Blunt and Fisher had been great friends for many years and supported each other throughout their careers.
Carrie Fisher also opened up about her battle with weight loss
Back in 2015 when Fisher was promoting The Force Awakens, she candidly expressed her anger and frustration with the film industry that bothers everyone. More than the talent and skill of the person, it is the outer appearance that counts most. In an interview with Good Housekeeping UK, Fisher claimed,
Nothing changes: it’s an appearance-driven thing. I’m in a business where the only thing that matters is weight and appearance. That is so messed up. They might as well say ‘get younger,’ because that’s how easy it is. … I did it the same way everybody has to – don’t eat and exercise more! There is no other way to do it. I have a harder time eating properly than I do exercising.
The actress further expressed how she loses her essence when she loses weight just to fit in some outfits and look a certain way on screen. Ultimately, Fisher endured the challenges and was seen as Leia in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
Such revelations really open one’s eyes to the truth about Hollywood. No matter how successful Fisher became after the movies, we never truly knew the internal battle she was constantly fighting.
