Dan Aykroyd is one of those people that you don’t hear too much about, but whenever you find yourself thinking about him, your heart fills with love and light. So you might want to take a minute to alert your heart that a flood is coming. See, in case you missed it, Dan was engaged to Carrie Fisher all the way back in the early 80s. They never got married, but Dan always thought well of her. We know that last part because he wrote this absolutely moving tribute to Carrie, who passed away last month at the age of 60, and he was kind enough to share it with us all. Take some deep breaths, steady yourself, do whatever you need to do to prepare for a good cry … And here we go. “I grew up as a simple Catholic kid from a government family in Hull, Quebec,” Dan begins, “so you can imagine how much of a privilege and honour it was for me to have known this one-off, broke-the-mould woman as a great friend.” He recalls that he first met Carrie when she hosted Saturday Night Live in 1978, but that “Later, while filming Blues Brothers, Carrie and I fell in love.” “Contemplating marriage, I gave Carrie a sapphire ring,” he says, “and subsequently in the romance she gave me a Donald Roller Wilson oil painting of a monkey in a blue dress next to a tiny floating pencil.” He says he kept the painting for years, “until it began to frighten my children.” Dan calls Carrie “one of the most brilliant and hilarious minds of our eon,” and that with her, “I was embraced in warmly human and Hollywood-glamorous emotional comfort, elegance and excitement.” One Christmas, Debbie Reynolds booked a guest house in Lake Tahoe for them, and as Dan remembers, “At that point, our love was soaring on laugh-filled exhilaration and a vibrant, wholly satisfying physical intimacy.” He refers to the trip as “Certainly one of the planet’s greatest occasions where LSD was a factor.” Unfortunately, though they “had a great time” together, they eventually split because Carrie “was also in love with Paul Simon.” “She married him,” he concludes, “but I hope she kept my ring.” Are you weeping yet? It’s all right if you are. And if you haven’t stopped weeping since Carrie Fisher died? That’s perfectly fine too. There’s just so. Much. Sadness. View Slideshow: Carrie Fisher: Mourned, Honored by Hollywood
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Dan Aykroyd Pens Heartbreaking Tribute to Former Love Carrie Fisher
