Did Carrie Fisher Smoke Weed?

Whether or not you’re a Star Wars fan, you probably still want the answer to one burning question: did Carrie Fisher smoke weed? Looks like you’ve come to the right place for the answer. Join us as we investigate whether Princess Leia preferred to puff it or pass it.

Who Was Carrie Fisher?

Born on October 21, 1956, in Burbank, California, the future Princess Leia was already a member of Hollywood royalty. Her father, Eddie Fisher, was at the time one of the most popular singers in show business.  Likewise, her mother actress Debbie Reynolds had already been nominated for numerous awards, including an Oscar. And it didn’t take long for Fisher to go into the family business. At fifteen, Carrie made her debut on Broadway alongside her mother in a revival of the musical Irene.

It was only four years later that Fisher would make an indelible impression on audiences on her first, biggest, and most well-known role: as Princess Leia in George Lucas’ first entry in Star Wars franchise, A New Hope. She would go on to star in two subsequent Star Wars films—The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, for which she garnered worldwide acclaim. Decades later, Fisher reprised her role as Leia in The Force Awakens in 2015.

Besides acting, Fisher gained notoriety as a novelist, playwright, and memoirist. Her novel Postcards from the Edge, a semi-autobiographical account of her struggles with drug abuse and bipolar disorder, was turned into a film starring Meryl Streep. Her memoirs Wishful Drinking and The Princess Diarist were received positively by critics. The former went on to become a well-received one-woman show, which Fisher herself starred in. Her stage adaptation was subsequently turned into an HBO special and aired in December 2010.

Sadly, the Star Wars icon passed away in 2016 on a flight from Los Angeles to London due to cardiac arrest.

But back to our original question: did Carrie Fisher smoke weed?

Puff or Pass?

According to Fisher, the actress first tried weed at the tender age of thirteen. As per the actress, her mother eventually found out. The twist? Fisher said she was more perturbed at the thought of young Carrie smoking in a non-safe space than anything else

“Dear, I thought instead of you going outside and smoking pot where you might get caught and get in trouble. I thought you and I might experiment with it together,” Reynolds allegedly said.

While Fisher continued to engage in cannabis use for the next six years, it was an event during filming her breakout role in the first Star Wars film that put a halt to her habit.  In her 2016 memoir The Princess Diarist, Fisher recalled it was while smoking some weed provided by her Star Wars co-star Harrison Ford that her high took her to a pretty dark place.

“Where at the onset it was all giggles and munchies and floating in a friendly haze – it suddenly became creepy and dark and scary,” Fisher wrote. Part of it was due to the strong potency of the weed—or its “brutal strength,” as she described—which Fisher was unaware of at the time.

Final Hit: Did Carrie Fisher Smoke Weed?

Unfortunately, Fisher’s tango with pot didn’t mirror her relationships with other illicit substances. From then on, Fisher more or less stopped smoking weed, but cannabis was the least of her problems.

The star was candid about her life-long struggle with drug abuse—most prominently cocaine—but her habits ultimately contributed to her death. According to a toxicology report, Fisher had a mix of cocaine, methadone, heroin, and MDMA in her system at the time of her death.

So did Carrie Fisher smoke weed? As far as we can tell, yes—at least for one point in her life. Looks like we’ve closed the case on this one, kids.