Could self-styled 'respectable former drug addict' Carrie Fisher's decades-long struggles with substance abuse and weight loss have caused her heart attack?

  • Fisher suffered a heart attack on a UK-US flight Friday and is on a ventilator
  • The cause of the heart attack is not known, but Fisher has has a difficult life
  • She has struggled with drug addiction and body dysmorphia issues 
  • The actress talked about how she has been unhappy with her weight
  • Fisher had to lose 35lbs to return to the part of Leia in the 2015 Star Wars film 
  • Heavy weight loss or a history of drug abuse can increase the risk of heart attack
  • She also has bipolar disorder, which led to more drug abuse and shock therapy

The news that Star Wars legend Carrie Fisher, 60, has suffered a massive heart attack while on board a transatlantic flight has come as a shock to many.

But for those familiar with the star's own struggles in life, the horrifying announcement may not be unexpected.

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Fisher is best known for her role as Leia, the Empire-busting space princess from the Star Wars movies, but she has long fought her own wars with drug addiction and weight loss.

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Princess: Carrie Fisher, most famous for playing rebel leader Princess Leia (pictured), has fought both drug addition and weight issues. On Friday she suffered a massive heart attack
Spotted: Fans suggested that Fisher's long nail, seen in The Return of the Jedi here, was used to scoop up cocaine - the drug that Fisher was heavily addicted to in the 1970s
Danger: Fisher denied the claim in a tweet, saying she 'used dollars or tiny spoons like any other respectable former drug addict'. Drug use and heavy weight loss can weaken the heart

Fisher was just 19 when she fought off Jodie Foster and Amy Irving, among others, to take the role of diplomat and rebel leader Princess Leia in 1977's Star Wars.

It was only her second movie, after Shampoo two years earlier, but it launched her to international stardom - and with it the Hollywood drug and party scene.

Fisher quickly became addicted to cocaine, the drug of choice in the late '70s, starting down a road she would struggle to leave for decades.

In an interview in 2010, while promoting her stand-up comedy show 'Wishful Drinking' in Sydney, she recalled how she had snorted the drug while shooting the movie's first sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. 

'I didn’t even like coke that much, it was just a case of getting on whatever train I needed to take to get high,’ she said, adding that she was shooting scenes set on - ironically - the snow-bound planet of Hoth.

User: Fisher said that even the famously party-loving James Belushi told her to calm down her drug use. She admitted to taking cocaine on the set of Empire Strikes Back

In fact, she claims, her addiction got so bad that even famously Bacchanalian comedian John Belushi - who died at the age of 33 overdosing on a mix of cocaine and speed - told her to calm it down.

'Slowly I realized I was doing a bit more drugs than other people and losing my choice in the matter,' she said.

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'If I’d been addicted to booze I’d be dead now, because you just go out and get it.'

Despite mostly avoiding alcohol in her earlier years, she admitted to partying during filming, including one night spent with the Rolling Stones and co-star Harrison Ford at comedian Eric Idle's house.

She recalled how she broke her usual rule and decided to get drunk with the band, before rolling in to an early morning shoot on the set about two hours later.

'And we weren't hung over, we were still in our cups,' she said. 'And if you watch the movie you can see that: Harrison and I are smiling as we arrived in Cloud City. Doesn’t that sound like a euphemism?'

Fisher was still using cocaine when the second sequel, The Return of the Jedi, was being shot. 

In one scene, fans on Reddit noted, she has one fingernail longer than the others - leading to speculation that she used it to scoop up cocaine for her nose. 

But Fisher blew that claim out of the water in spectacular fashion on Twitter: 'I never used my fingernail for drugs,' she said. 'I used dollars or tiny spoons like any other respectable former drug addict.'

Fisher jumped on and off the wagon for years, but in 2005 a shocking event pushed her back towards drugs.

Weight issues: Fisher (seen in 1983's Return of the Jedi was made to lose 10lbs to get the role of Leia
Struggle: Fisher (seen at the premiere of Gravity in 2013) struggled with weight issues throughout her life

R Gregory Stevens, a Republican lobbyist, came to her home along with a number of other people. He slept in her bed with her that night - and was dead by the time she woke up.

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'And from the first moment I blamed myself,' Fisher told Vanity Fair in 2006. 'I thought I’d put the pillow on his face. I was in shock for months. 

'I thought I had killed him because it had happened on my watch and I had failed to save him.

'They say his body was so worn out from drug use that if it hadn’t happened that night it would’ve happened on another one.'

The autopsy report said Stevens died due to 'cocaine and oxycodone use'.

But it also said chronic, and apparently previously undiagnosed, heart disease was a contributing factor - an echo, perhaps, of this week's dreadful news.

Fisher told Vanity Fair that her house became haunted by Stevens' ghost, until she had him exorcised. 'I was a nut for a year, and in that year I took drugs again,' she said.

The actress has always been very open about blaming herself, not the Hollywood environment for her addictions.

'It's always been my responsibility, she said. 'If it was Hollywood [that was to blame] then we'd all be dope addicts.'

Loss: Fisher was made to lose 35lbs to reclaim the role of Leia in 2015's The Force Awakens (pictured). She complained that they only wanted to hire 'three quarters' of her

It wasn't just drugs that haunted Fisher, however, but problems with losing and gaining weight.

Those struggles began early: She only got the part of Princess Leia in 1976 on the agreement that she would lose 10lbs.

And the pressure to stay trim continued right up until the third film, The Return of the Jedi, when she famously wore a gold metal bikini, showing off her perfectly flat stomach.

'I have serious body dysmorphia issues,' she told The Daily Beast last year. 'But I must admit being somewhat proud looking back at [the Return of the Jedi] photos.'

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Fisher's life was haunted by weight loss and body issues. In 2011 she told Us Weekly that she hated 'wearing big clothes' and joked 'they have to make a new alphabet for my bra size'.

She then became a spokesperson for weight loss company Jenny Craig, a role she has continued in up to the present day. 

In a cruel echo of her experience on the first Star Wars movie, when she returned to the role of Leia - now a military general - in 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, she was once more told to drop weight for Hollywood.

Despite being clad in military fatigues for the film, she was told to shed a whole 35lbs before shooting began.

'They don’t want to hire all of me, only about three-quarters,' she told Good Housekeeping last year. 

'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.' 

Conflicted: Fisher (pictured with Return of the Jedi stunt double) says she feels 'proud' of her appearance in the film, but also resented feeling good about losing weight

In an interview with The Mirror, a doctor noted that heavy weight loss can weaken the heart.

The unnamed medic said: 'When you go on a crash diet, it's not just fat you lose.

'Exactly the same thing is happening to your heart muscle. Because your body isn't getting energy from food, it converts body tissue into glucose for energy.

'If the heart loses too much muscle, it can't pump properly, leading to an irregular heartbeat, which can result in a heart attack.' 

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Fisher said that she lost the weight the usual way - eating less and exercising more. But she said she struggled with the former. 

'It's easier for me to add an activity than to deny myself anything,' she said.

She added that losing weight made her feel uncomfortable with herself. 

'When I do lose the weight I don’t like that it makes me feel good about myself,' she said. 'It’s not who I am. My problem is they talk to me like an actress but I hear them like a writer.' 

In one of Fisher's last tweets before the heart attack, she linked to an article about the filming of the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One, which was released on December 16.

That film - set before the events of the first Star Wars movie - features a CGI recreation of Princess Leia, among other characters. 

The article she linked to in the Tweet noted that the CGI motion capture had to be performed by a younger actress.

'Is YR body DKaying + deth marching ever closer?' Fisher tweeted. 'R the sands of time so cruel they shud B arrested + sent 2 a cardiac beach[sic]? Get CGI, perspective + deal w/it.'

Perspective: Fisher tweeted this about getting 'perspective' on 'YR body DKaying' on Tuesday, in reference to a younger actress playing her body double in new film Star Wars: Rogue One

Fisher's also battled bipolar disorder, which she was diagnosed with in her early twenties, and led to her abusing prescription drugs as well as illegal ones.

In an interview with the bipolar British comedian Stephen Fry in 2006's The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, she talked about how she would abuse pain drug Percocet to 'dial down' her manic episodes.

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'Drugs made me feel normal,' she told Psychology Today in 2001. 'They contained me.'

She also spent a period getting electroconvulsive shock therapy every six weeks to 'blow apart' the 'cement' in her brain, she told Us Weekly in 2011.

That led to memory loss, although she addressed the side-effects with characteristic wry humor: '. 'I don't remember movies I've seen so I get to see them over and over again,' she said. 'It's actually not bad.'

She said in 2014 that she had given up the practice. 

The illness stems in part from growing up in the shadow of her actress mom Debbie Reynolds and singer father Eddie Fisher, she said. 

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