James Blunt says studio pressure to be thin for Disney Star Wars spin-offs led to close friend Carrie Fisher's drug relapse and death at the age of 60

James Blunt has revealed Carrie Fisher felt so pressured by the Star Wars bosses to be thin at 60 years old that it drove her to abuse drugs again which ultimately led to her death.

The You’re Beautiful hitmaker was close friends with Fisher, famed for playing Princess Leia in the franchise, and lived at her house in LA during the 2000s when he was recording his debut album.

Blunt, 50, told an audience at Hay Literature Festival: ‘I just knew that the day before she died when she came back to my house and she'd been really mistreating her body and she'd just got the job again of being Princess Leia in the new Star Wars movies.

‘So she's really on a high and positive but they had applied a lot of pressure on her to be thin, which is what they do, so she spoke about the difficulties that women have in the industry that men are allowed to grow old and women are not.

‘She had to really put a lot of pressure on herself and started abusing drugs again.

James Blunt has revealed Carrie Fisher felt so pressured by the Star Wars bosses to be thin at 60 years old that it drove her to abuse drugs again which ultimately led to her death.

Blunt, 50, told an audience at Hay Literature Festival: ‘I just knew that the day before she died when she came back to my house and she'd been really mistreating her body and she'd just got the job again of being Princess Leia in the new Star Wars movies

‘So by the time she got on the plane, she had practically killed herself. They said it was a heart failure but she had taken enough drugs to have a great party.’

Fisher died in 2016 with the autopsy revealing a cocktail of drugs including cocaine, meth, ecstasy, alcohol and opiates found in her system which caused a cardiac arrest on a flight from London to Los Angeles.

Speaking about the bizarre trappings of fame, Blunt alleged he was once threatened by the Pussycat Dolls’ boss at Interscope Records to stop sleeping with members of the girl band.

The Wisemen singer said: ‘’m a normal human being thrown into this bizarre scenario, being in the music business and along the way, some astounding things happened to me.

‘Jimmy Iovine, head of a record label sent a large man to tell me that he’s going to kill me if I slept with a Pussycat Doll again.

‘I was just having a normal conversation with Robbie Williams on one side and Shakira on the other side and then turned to him and said: “Tell Jimmy, to tell her not to f*** me and then you won’t have to kill me”.’

 The actress starred as Princess Leia in the epic film series for a number of years (pictured in 1980)

James counted Hollywood star Carrie (centre) amongst his close friends

Fisher (pictured on the set of Star Wars in 1977) died in 2016 with the autopsy revealing a cocktail of drugs including cocaine, meth, ecstasy, alcohol and opiates found in her system which caused a cardiac arrest on a flight from London to Los Angeles

Carrie (pictured in 2014) was the daughter of fellow Hollywood star Debbie Reynolds, who died just a few days after she did

James Blunt is now married to aristocrat Sophia Wellesley, who is the granddaughter of the 8th Duke of Wellington and the pair have two young sons together with Ed Sheeran godfather to the eldest (pictured in 2022)

Blunt is alleged to have spent the night with the former Pussycat Doll, Jessica Sutta, 42, in 2006.

In 2014, he married his wife, the aristocrat Sophia Wellesley, who is the granddaughter of the 8th Duke of Wellington and the pair share two young sons together with Ed Sheeran godfather to the eldest.

He said: ‘Fame is like a drug and I’m at this glorious part in my life where it’s fading, that album and that song was so long ago now that I’m down to normality again. This mushroom trip of fame.’

The British singer, who now lives in Ibiza, revealed: ‘I am from Norfolk and we’re all related to each other. I'm not even joking, my grandparents are cousins - I’m being absolutely serious.

‘Everything I write about my family is totally true. I did tone down a few things, I wanted to call my mum butch and she didn’t like that so I called her Amazonian because she’s big and tough.’