Inside Julia Roberts' 12 months of grief after double tragedy 'heartbreak'

Julia Roberts has had a highly successful career in Hollywood, and is nearly always seen with a smile on her face. However, in her personal life, the star has suffered tragedy, losing both her mom and half-sister in the space of 12 months.

The Hollywood actress went through a tough 12 months between 2014-2015, first, losing her half-sister Nancy at the age of 37, and then dealing with her mother’s tragic passing from lung cancer in 2015.

Julia Roberts ‘heartbroken’ over the loss of half-sister Nancy

In Feburary 2014, the movie star lost her half-sister, Nancy Motes, to a suspected drug overdose at the age of 37.

The two shared the same mother, Betty Lou, but had different fathers. At the time of her death, Nancy was hoping to follow in her elder sister’s footsteps in the acting world and had been working as a TV producer on the hit show Glee.

Understandably, Roberts remained quiet, publically, for a while, until she opened up in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, published in April 2014.

In the interview, which was held 20 days after the tragic news, the Pretty Woman star talked about her raw grief.

As her ‘face tightened’, and she ‘teared up’, Roberts said: “It’s just heartbreak. It’s only been 20 days. There aren’t words to explain what any of us have been through in these last 20 days. It’s hour by hour some days, but you just keep looking ahead.

“You don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone, but there are so many tragic, painful, inexplicable things in the world. But [as with] any situation of challenge and despair, we must find a way, as a family. It’s so hard to formulate a sentence about it outside the weepy huddle of my family.”

Roberts tragically lost her mother a year later

A year later, in February 2015, tragedy struck Julia and her family once again, as she lost her beloved mother, Betty Lou Bredemus, at the age of 80, after a battle with lung cancer.

Like her daughter, Betty was an actress and acting coach, which influenced the Notting Hill star to get into the profession.

After being named PEOPLE’s Most Beautiful Woman in 2017, the star opened up about her relationship with her mom, crediting her for everything she learned about motherhood.

“My mom worked a full-time job and raised three girls pretty much on her own. My brother [actor Eric Roberts] is older, so he was gone and out of the house. She never showed the strain of it,” she said.

Julia started her own family in 2002 after marrying her husband Danny Moder. The couple share three children, twins Hazel and Phinnaeus, and son Henry.

She recalled asking her mom how she deals with three children under three, to which she responded: “It’s called daycare, honey.”

“I was so appreciative and so grateful she didn’t tell me some sage, b******* story about what it’s like to be a great mother,” Julia revealed, before revealing she thinks of her “all the time.”

Now, the 55-year-old takes to her Instagram to remember her mother, most recently, posting a tribute to her on her birthday, this August.

In a post, she can be seen looking off into the distance, wearing a bracelet with the words “Betty.” In the caption, the star wrote: “My mother’s Birthday. Miss you every day.”

Larita Shotwell

Update: 2024-08-22

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