Diane Keaton’s close friend is giving insight into the actress’s health before her death.
“I saw her two or three weeks ago, and she was very thin,” Grammy and Oscar-winning songwriter Carole Bayer Sager told People in an interview published Sunday, one day after Keaton died at age 79.
“She had lost so much weight,” Sager, 81, added about Keaton.
Sager also explained that she saw Keaton less this year because the “Father of the Bride” star moved to Palm Springs after her home was damaged in the California wildfires in January.
“She was down there for a while, and when she came back, I was kind of stunned by how much weight she’d lost,” Sager said.
The songwriter, who helped Keaton make her only single, “First Christmas,” which was released in Nov. 2024, described the late actress as “a magic light for everyone.”
“I just loved her,” Sager shared. “She was so special, she just lit up a room with her energy. She was happy and upbeat and taking photographs of everything she saw. She was completely creative; she never stopped creating.”
Another friend, a film executive, told People that Keaton “was funny right up until the end.”
“She lived exactly how she wanted to, which was on her own terms, surrounded by the people and things she really loved,” the pal stated, adding that Keaton “kept a close circle and she liked it that way” in the final few years of her life.
“She had this way of making even ordinary moments feel special,” Keaton’s friend also said. “That was just who she was.”
Keaton, whose career spanned more than half a century, died Saturday in California, her family confirmed. A cause of death was not disclosed.
Keaton’s health allegedly “declined very suddenly” in the last few months.
“It was so unexpected,” a friend of Keaton’s told People Saturday, “especially for someone with such strength and spirit.”
The friend added that Keaton’s health decline “was heartbreaking for everyone who loved her.”
Keaton never disclosed if she was battling any illness. She previously survived two bouts with skin cancer and an eating disorder.
The “First Wives Club” actress last posted to her Instagram on April 11, sharing a photo with her Golden Retriever, Reggie. She had not been seen publicly in six months.
Keaton is survived by her two children, Dexter, 29, and Duke, 25, whom she famously adopted after her 50th birthday.
