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Jennifer Love Hewitt has opened up about grief following her mother’s passing in 2012, and how the media knew about her death before she did.
The Ghost Whisperer star, 45, recently spoke about her forthcoming book Inheriting Magic – in which she recounts her healing journey after her mother’s death from cancer – at a bookshop event in Los Angeles, California, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Hewitt’s mother, Patricia Mae Hewitt, died from complications from cancer on June 12, 2012, aged 67. The I Know What You Did Last Summer actor, who was 33 at the time, shared that she learned about her mother’s passing through the media.
“The part that I didn’t put in the book is that actually the press knew that my mom had passed before I did,” Hewitt said at the event. At the time, she was in Monaco for the 52nd Monte Carlo TV Festival.
“The flight time with me getting back was so long,” she recalled. “It was like a 10-and-a-half-hour flight, so by the time I arrived, everybody knew, and it was such a weird thing for me.
“But then later on, I was like, but everybody’s always known everything about my life, kind of, before. Even breakups, people have been like, ‘He was cheating on you already.’ Really, people? Like, why didn’t you tell me?”
In Inheriting Magic: My Journey Through Grief, Joy, Celebration, and Making Every Day Magical, which is set for release on December 10, Hewitt opens up about her close relationship with her mother, who she said made everyone around her feel special.
“I would be on a very successful television show, we would walk into a restaurant and people couldn’t care less about me; that was my mother,” the 9-1-1 actor explained. “They wanted to know who was the woman that I was standing next to because she was light, she was joy. She made friends with everyone, there was no stranger in the world to her whatsoever.”
Hewitt, who stars in the upcoming Lifetime Christmas movie The Holiday Junkie, recalled how her mother even tried to bring joy to the most somber occasion.
“If I had a broken heart or a bad day, she would put up Christmas lights because she believed that that sort of lifted the mood,” she said. “If I had bad cramps, there were lights.”
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Hewitt admitted that she “hadn’t ever said that much about [her] mother” after she’d passed because she “didn’t have the words” before.
“I just didn’t know what to say, and this felt like the right time to talk about her and sort of say, ‘This is what she left behind,’” she told the outlet.
Hewitt has been married to actor Brian Hallisay since 2013. The couple share three children together – daughter Autumn, 10, and sons Atticus, nine, and Aiden, three.
In June last year, the Heartbreakers star honored her mother on the 11th anniversary of her passing. She paid tribute on Instagram by sharing a throwback photo of herself with Patricia Mae.
“11 years ago my life changed in a moment. We didn’t get to say goodbye but I think it’s because we wouldn’t have known how,” Hewitt wrote in the caption. “I see you in my kids everyday. I feel you in things I say and smile because I’m more like you than I thought. I honor you by trying to create magic for my family just like you did for us. I love you deeply.
“I’m so grateful you were our mom. This day will always hurt because you were that special. Always and forever mom.”