Carrie Fisher Said She Felt ‘Worthless’ During Her Affair With Harrison Ford

While filming Star Wars: A New Hope, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford had a brief affair. Ford was married at the time, while Fisher was only 19-years-old with little to no romantic experience. The Princess Leia actor fell in love with her co-star, but Ford only wanted a fling with Fisher. This dynamic made her feel a sense of “worthlessness” that carried on throughout their affair. 

Carrie Fisher became ‘obsessed’ with Harrison Ford while filming ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’

After Fisher and Ford began their sexual fling, Fisher developed strong feelings for her co-star. She felt as though she “belonged” to him and became “obsessed” with the actor.

According to her memoir titled The Princess Diarist (2016), Ford was her “number one priority” on set. But because she wanted to play it cool, she never expressed her feelings for him. Instead, she wrote about their affair in her diary, which she boldly shared in her 2016 memoir. 

In these diary entries, she would talk about how painful it felt to love someone who refused to love her back. Yet, at the same time, she preferred the unrequited aspect of their relationship. According to Fisher, she would feel disappointed if Ford actually returned her love. 

“Trying relentlessly to make you love me, but I don’t want the love,” she wrote. “I quite prefer the quest for it. The challenge. I am always disappointed with someone who loves me—how perfect can he be if he can’t see through me?”  

Carrie Fisher felt a sense of ‘worthlessness’ in her affair with Harrison Ford

In Fisher’s memoir, she said that she’d eventually get hurt by Ford. According to the actress, no matter what happened, she’d be left heartbroken. This made her feel a familiar sense of “worthlessness.” 

“I suspect that no matter what happens, I will allow it to hurt me. Eat away at my insides, as it were—as it will be. As it always has been,” she wrote. 

Fisher continued, saying that the only “reckoning” she could muster up with Ford was that he “allowed” her to love him.

“If Harrison was unable to see that I had feelings for him (at least five, but sometimes as many as seven), then he wasn’t as smart as I thought he was—as I knew he was,” she said. “So I loved him, and he allowed it. That’s as close a reckoning as I can muster four decades later.” 

Carrie Fisher said that she preferred unavailable men

Fisher was used to the men in her life being unavailable. Her famous father, Eddie Fisher, had left a pregnant Debbie Reynolds for Elizabeth Taylor. Of course, Reynolds was pregnant with Carrie Fisher.

According to the actor, her father had little to no interest in developing a relationship with her. And because of his abandonment, Fisher said she was used to men running away from her. 

That’s why she liked Ford so much: because he was unobtainable. 

“I wish you would love me more so that I could love you less,” Fisher said of Ford.