Kate Beckinsale.
(Photo by Taylor Hill/WireImage)Kate Beckinsale marked the one-year anniversary of her stepfather’s death with a candid and emotional post describing what it was like to watch him and her father die.
The actress shared a photo of her late stepfather, Roy Batterseathrough her Instagram account on Friday, January 10. In the image, Roy can be seen wearing a new shirt that reads ‘World’s best fart. I mean father” and smiles while holding a bouquet of flowers.
“Finding my father’s dead body alone in the middle of the night at the age of five shaped my entire life. Seeing my beloved stepfather die a year ago today will haunt me forever,” Beckinsale, 51, wrote in the lengthy tribute. “It really seems terribly careless that I was able to attend both deaths and not be able to prevent either of them by trying a second time with every single thing I had. It wasn’t enough.”
The Canary black actress reflects on her grief and sense of loss surrounding Battersea’s death, who died in Los Angeles in January 2024 after a “short illness”.
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Max Mara Kate Beckinsale is mourning the death of her stepfather, British director Roy Battersby. “I have no words yet. Thank you @katebeckinsale_slovakia2 for doing this beautiful thing, Beckinsale, 50, captioned an Instagram video of Battersby taken by a fan account on Monday, January 15. “I fought for you with everything (…)
“In the process of losing my beloved Roy, I lost family, friendships, at times my own health and all the money I had because of how disgusting the American health care system is for the uninsured. I would do it again. There is no doubt. I can’t help but feel like I failed miserably,” she wrote
Beckinsale explained that she relied on what she could to “comfort herself”, telling herself that Battersea had been prepared for the end of her life and she was “at peace with it”.
“It feels like a lie, but I’m telling myself to try to make myself feel better. Maybe I’m just, unfortunately, not enlightened enough to sell that to myself instead of my sense of loss, guilt and failure,” she admitted.
The one-year anniversary of Battersea’s death was a tough pill to swallow, according to Beckinsale.
MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images UPDATE: 1/19/24 at 12:45 p.m. ET A day after Beckinsale shared her disappointment with BAFTA over honoring her late stepfather, the awards show decided to honor him at a later ceremony. “We were very sorry to hear of the recent death of Roy Battersby – he was famous (…)
“It’s a hard day to talk about our new and precious tragedy, but considering I wasn’t able to save him, I’ll be damned if I don’t honor him in some small way,” she continued. “He taught me how to be brave. He taught me that it doesn’t matter if people don’t like you as long as you do the right thing, he lost everything fighting for justice for the unions, for the Palestinians in the 1970s, living with them in refugee camps in Lebanon for several years making his 1977 documentary. ‘The Palestinian’, fighting for the miners who are losing everything in the strikes.”
She concluded: “I’m so lucky to have been raised by someone who uncompromisingly knew what was right and lived it. And he loved me. Thank you for being my father. I miss you so much.”
