She described it as a 3-month 1-night stand. When she was 19, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford, a
33-year-old married father of two, had an intense, whirlwind affair. And, just a month before her
shock death almost five years ago, Carrie finally shared the diary where she detailed every thought
and emotion with the world. Today, we’re looking into the secret she kept for four decades.
Her decision thrilled Star Wars fans, who at long last found that the bickering intense love
story they had seen played out again and again on screen was, in some small way, true to life.
In The Princess Diarist, published November 2016,
the 60-year-old Carrie shared her memories of their passionate affair.
“It was so intense. It was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison during the weekend.”
Although Carrie had previously hinted at some sort of entanglement with Ford, it was only when her
final book was published that she confirmed it. After stumbling on often angst-ridden journals
that she kept while filming in London, she felt the time had come to open up about the
formative experience. Finally, enough time has passed to enable her to tell the story.
“It wasn’t just my secret to keep,” she said, meaning that Ford was married at the time of
their affair to his high school sweetheart. The two first got together when he rescued
her from a rather creepy situation at George Lucas’s birthday party during the
filming of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope. The youngest there and “essentially the
only girl,” she was surrounded by crew members after arriving at the party.
After teasing her — “here’s our little princess without her buns” — they decided to get her drunk.
Unused to alcohol, Carrie found herself quickly overwhelmed.
It’s at this point that Harrison stepped in. “Pardon me,” he told a crew member who claimed
Carrie wanted to get a little air, “but the lady doesn’t seem to be very aware of what she wants.”
Harrison took charge of his young co-star, and after an argument with the other men,
took her out of the party and to his car. It was here that their fling began,
and they first kissed. The moment was one Carrie admitted to having fantasized about.
After spending their first night together following a birthday party,
Fisher was wracked by self-doubt. “I looked over at Harrison. A hero’s
face — a few strands of hair fell over his noble, slightly furrowed brow,” she wrote.
“How could you ask such a shining specimen of a man to be satisfied with the likes of me?”
She wrote that her co-star was her “number one priority” on set. However,
she clarified that the intensity of her and Ford’s romance was most likely due to her young age.
Fisher also said having an undiagnosed, at the time, bipolar disorder intensified
her self-proclaimed obsession with Ford. And the kisses continued, along with nights
of passion. “Check out those kisses in Empire. They did not have to use special effects,”
Carrie wrote of one occasion. The young Carrie even admitted
to fantasizing her lover would give her a “gold band with diamonds inscribed Carrison.”
Even though she knew Ford was already married to someone else, Fisher still dreamed about a future
with her co-star. She imagined a world where he’d “gently and responsibly” leave his wife for her.
In her journal, Fisher said she thought the idea might come true after imitating him at a pub.
Although Ford is known for his Stoic ways, he burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter at
her imitation of him. Fisher felt so ecstatic that she could make him laugh
that she started to believe there was a chance for a romantic future between them.
“He was not only laughing,” she writes, “he was laughing that silent and hard laugh
reserved for true enthusiasm. Almost forty years later, I still think of it as one of the
greater moments of my life. My ‘love’ life.” Sadly, Fisher’s fantasy never transpired.
Instead, when filming wrapped on Star Wars, Ford returned to his wife and family.
And while their brief affair was passionate, the young Carrie was riddled with insecurities.
“I was shocked by the fact that he fancied me. I was a very insecure
girl and had only had one boyfriend.” At the same time, she said, there was
no way he could have known how innocent she was because she had deliberately
painted a false picture of herself. “He perceived me as this very confident,
experienced girl.” Carrie wrote. “I don’t think he had all the information! And when he got it,
he behaved accordingly. And we stayed together for the remainder of the film.” According to Fisher,
it was never going to be more than that. She didn’t think it was going to be even that.
One of the questions she repeatedly asked herself in the diaries is whether Ford knew how she felt.
“I don’t think, until now, he knew the intensity of my feelings.”
As for herself, she said she has probably tried to bury those emotions over the years.
Although their unlikely romance took Fisher by complete surprise and ran its course once the
film wrapped, she remembers the time fondly. “Harrison is a decent — albeit complicated
and frequently silent — guy,” she concluded in her book. “He’s always been decent to me,
and as far as I know, the only time he cheated on any of his three wives was with me.
And maybe he didn’t think that counted all that much because of how short I am.”
Almost a year after her death, Harrison Ford has spoken about his affair with
Carrie Fisher for the first time. In an interview with GQ magazine, Harrison
acknowledged the relationship and admitted it was “strange” that she chose to write about it.
When asked if Carrie warned him that he would be featuring in the book, he responded:
“Um, to a degree. Yes.” However, he seemed reluctant to
reveal anything else, and when questioned about how he felt about being in the book, he said:
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. You know, with Carrie’s untimely passing, I don’t really feel
that it’s a subject that I want to discuss.” He did, however, admit that he hadn’t read it.
In 2018, Fisher’s brother, Todd, released a memoir about his late sister and mother called My Girls:
A Lifetime With Carrie and Debbie. Todd wrote that the affair came as a surprise to Reynolds.
Reportedly, he said the news upset their mother, which caused Fisher to regret
revealing her romance with Ford to the world. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have told that story,”
Fisher said to her mother, according to Todd. On the Graham Norton show, she explained:
“I had no idea it would cause such a sensation, 400,000 news sites picked up
on it, and it became a little embarrassing.” The actor also revealed she sent Harrison a
copy of the book before it was published and was adamant it paints him in a good light.
Following Carrie’s tragic death on December 27, 2016, days after suffering
a heart attack aboard a plane, Harrison shared his love for “brilliant” Carrie.
“Carrie was one-of-a-kind… brilliant, original.
Funny and emotionally fearless. She lived her life, bravely... We will all miss her.”
Surprisingly, Fisher said she and Ford never discussed their relationship,
neither at the time nor afterward. In 2015, they were reunited as characters in Star Wars:
The Force Awakens for the first time in 30 years. “On this last film I noticed that two people were
flirting, and they had a big age difference like we had, and I pointed it out to him, and he said,
‘Well, I hope it goes well for them.’ I think it’s the only time we’ve ever referred to it.”
However, what emerged over the years was a lasting friendship with Mark Hamill.
When Carrie told him about her affair with Ford, he was shocked. Yep, none of her Star Wars cast
members knew about the romance, including Hamill. And because her feelings for her on-screen lover
were so one-sided, Fisher said that she was sorry the affair wasn’t with Mark Hamill instead.
“It might’ve meant something,” she wrote. “Maybe not much, but certainly more.”
As it turns out, Hamill and Fisher did have a little fling back in the day. Mark later admitted
that he and Carrie once made out to get their attraction for each other “out of their system.”
But it was more than just a physical attraction. According to Hamill, a part of him genuinely
fell in love with his longtime friend. “A part of me did fall in love with her,” he
confessed during a 2017 panel. “And sometimes we sort of wanted to go in that direction,” he said,
referring to a romantic relationship. Before her tragic death, Carrie was single,
looking to move to Britain, and was more than ready for another man. “I want to find a British
professor who will be able to put up with me, so you can put the word out. Good sense of humor,
intelligent, not hideously unattractive, and sort of confident without being arrogant.”
Following Fisher’s death, Hamill couldn’t get Fisher off his mind for years to come.
And during the panel, he discussed his grief. “Let me tell you when I go to sleep at night,
there’s never a day so far where I don’t think of her,” he said.
“And when I think of her … she’s looking down from the celestial stratosphere with those big
brown eyes, that sly smile on her face as she lovingly extends me the middle finger.”
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