Carrie Fisher family row eclipses Hollywood honour

LOS ANGELES-Carrie Fisher will be honoured with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame later, but a family dispute risks overshadowing the occasion. Hollywood paid tribute to the late Princess Leia actress on Thursday, May the Fourth - Star Wars Day. However, a row has erupted between Fisher’s daughter and siblings. Her brother and sisters have criticised Billie Lourd for not inviting them. In response, Lourd accused them of trying to “capitalize on my mother’s death”.Fisher died in 2016 at the age of 60. In 2018, Star Wars actor Mark Hamill led the calls for his co-star to be given her own tile on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. When it was confirmed last month that she would finally receive the honour, he said it was “long overdue and so well-deserved”. However, her brother Todd Fisher said he was not on the guest list to see it be unveiled. He told TMZ: “It’s heartbreaking and shocking to me that I was intentionally omitted from attending this important legacy event for my sister, Carrie.” Half-sister Joely Fisher posted a message on behalf of herself and sister Tricia Leigh Fisher saying: “Strangely we won’t be in attendance to celebrate our sister, whom we adored. “For some bizarre, misguided reason our niece has chosen not to include us in this epic moment in our sister’s career. “This is something Carrie would have definitely wanted her siblings to be present for. The fact that her only brother and two sisters were intentionally and deliberately excluded is deeply shocking.” She added that they had “all been grieving the loss of our favourite human for some years now… we have given Billie the space to do that in her own way”. The siblings had been “nothing but loving and open, consistently”, she said. “This isn’t about a photo op on Hollywood Blvd,” she wrote. “This is about celebrating the permanency of Carrie’s legacy in this industry, taking her place with a star on the iconic walk of fame alongside our parents.”

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