Star Wars star Carrie Fisher has opened up on the manic depression that has followed her throughout her life, revealing all in a candid chat on Irish TV last night.
The 57-year-old appeared on The Saturday Night Show this weekend where she claimed she inherited her depression from the Irish side of her family:
"The part of my family that the manic depression comes from is the Irish side who had a commitment to alcoholism that was beautiful", she told host Brendan O'Connor. "My great grand whatever, his name was Burt McReynolds and he dropped the Mac in the ocean when he came over to America. He was a horse thief."
Back in 2011 the star revealed to Oprah Winfrey that she was having electric shock treatment every six weeks to cope with her bipolar disorder, a treatment that she has now explained worked well for her:
"As far as I can remember, it did work for me but it does shred your memory," she said last night. "It did work for me, it's like convulsions any more . . . there is part of me that thinks, oh I wish I never started talking about this because now people think I'm nuts but I'm not - I just play that on TV", she laughed.
Carrie Fisher arrives at The Saturday Night Show (WENN)
Fisher added that she now deals with her depression by talking openly about it: "Everyone knows that depression is sh**e, that's the worst thing going, but mania can be great but the problem I have now is that I fall over things, I'm spilling everything, I'm getting ahead of myself. That sounds like just an expression but you feel you can't catch up with yourself. I'm forever running behind me saying `wait'!", she added.
Talk soon turned to Carrie's reprisal of her role as Princess Leia in JJ Abrams' Star Wars Episode VII, which is currently shooting in the UK. The actress didn't give too much away about the next installment in the saga but did joke about that iconic gold bikini from over thirty years ago:
"They're doing it over again so hopefully we'll get it right this time. People always ask me about that metal bikini - now I only wear that when I'm going on trips so I can go through security and the metal makes the machine go off and then they make me strip and bring in Jabba The Hut . . . it's just great", she joked.
"I don't have the metal bikini any more. You don't want to see your arms after 40 so . . . "
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