Jennifer Love Hewitt reveals disturbing details of how she heard about mum Patricia’s tragic death

Jennifer Love Hewitt says the media knew her late mother Patricia had died before she did.

The 45-year-old actress had been in Monaco for the 52nd Monte Carlo TV Festival at the time her mother Patricia Hewitt died aged 67 on June 12, 2012 after a battle with cancer.

“The press knew my mom was gone before I did,” the Waco, Texas, native said while promoting her new book Inheriting Magic and the movie it inspired, The Holiday Junkie, at Zibby’s Bookshop in Los Angeles, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The actress, who has three children with husband Brian Hallisay, 46 – daughter Autumn, 10, son Atticus, nine, and son Aidan, three – said “it was so strange for” her how things unfolded amid the family tragedy.

“The flight time for me to come back was so long,” the 9-1-1 actress said. ‘It was like a 10-and-a-half-hour flight, so when I arrived, everyone knew.’

Hewitt said finding out the life-changing news as such followed a problematic pattern she had dealt with before.

Jennifer Love Hewitt, 45, says the media knew her late mother Patricia had died before she did. The picture in March in LA

Hewitt’s mother Patricia Hewitt died aged 67 on 12 June 2012 after a battle with cancer

“Later I was like that, but everyone always knew everything about my life before,” Hewitt said. “Even brides, people have been like, ‘He already cheated on you.’ Really, people? Like, why didn’t you tell me?’

Patricia, who worked as a speech-language pathologist, had brought Jennifer from Texas to Los Angeles in 1989 to break into show business; Jennifer began appearing on the show Kids Incorporated that year, and later broke out with roles on the TV show Party of Five and the film I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Hewitt told THR that her new book is the first time she has spoken in detail about her late parent and the rich legacy she left behind: ‘I honestly had never said much about my mother after she passed away, because I had not words.

‘I just didn’t know what to say and it felt like the right time to talk about her and kind of say, “This is what she left behind.”

Hewitt said her late mother had a ritual of holding her hand when she went to work on her acting projects.

“I didn’t ask her until I was probably in my very late 20s, I was like, ‘Why are we holding hands? What’s that about?” she said. ‘Cause I didn’t really understand. And she said, “I want you to take my love and support with you to work during the day. I want you to feel and know that I am with you.”

‘And I miss it. That’s what I miss the most. I wish I had her hand’.

In June 2022, Hewitt shared a photo of herself sitting with her late mother to mark ’10 years since she lost’ her mother and ‘best friend’.

Hewitt directed and stars in the upcoming Lifetime movie The Holiday Junkie, which is partially inspired by her late mother

Hewitt has paid tribute to her late mother Patricia via several posts on her Instagram account, including this throwback photo she posted in 2022

“Someone told me after losing my mother that the first year would feel impossible, the years after would build strength in me, and then the 10-year mark would be an open wound again,” Hewitt said. ‘Cause it would feel insane to have been without her for so long. They were right.’

Hewitt said the anniversary felt ‘very raw’, bringing back painful memories.

“I’ll never forget not doing it to say goodbye,” Hewitt said. ‘I’ll never forget walking into her house that day hoping somehow she would come around the corner and waking up the next day praying it was all a bad dream.

‘The countless times I called her by accident when something good or bad happened because I forgot she couldn’t pick up.’

Hewitt said that while she is ‘proud of the way (she) dealt with grief’, she wishes ‘it wasn’t so painful’.

Hewitt’s book Inheriting Magic is scheduled to be released on December 10; it partly inspired her upcoming Lifetime movie The Holiday Junkie, which premieres on December 14.