Carrie Fisher's Hollywood Walk of Fame honour overshadowed by family row

Carrie Fisher will be honoured with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame later, but a family dispute risks overshadowing the occasion.

Hollywood is paying tribute to the late Princess Leia actress on Thursday, May the Fourth - Star Wars Day.

However, a row has erupted between Fisher's daughter and siblings.

Her brother and sisters have criticised Billie Lourd for not inviting them. In response, Lourd accused them of trying to "capitalize on my mother's death".

Fisher died in 2016 at the age of 60, a day before the death of her mother Debbie Reynolds, herself also a Hollywood icon.

In 2018, Star Wars actor Mark Hamill led the calls for his co-star to be given her own tile on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

When it was confirmed last month that she would finally receive the honour, he said it was "long overdue and so well-deserved".

However, her brother Todd Fisher said he was not on the guest list.

He told TMZ: "It's heartbreaking and shocking to me that I was intentionally omitted from attending this important legacy event for my sister, Carrie."

Half-sister Joely Fisher posted a message on behalf of herself and sister Tricia Leigh Fisher saying: "Strangely we won't be in attendance to celebrate our sister, whom we adored.

"For some bizarre, misguided reason our niece has chosen not to include us in this epic moment in our sister's career.

"This is something Carrie would have definitely wanted her siblings to be present for. The fact that her only brother and two sisters were intentionally and deliberately excluded is deeply shocking."

She added that they had "all been grieving the loss of our favorite human for some years now… we have given Billie the space to do that in her own way".

The siblings had been "nothing but loving and open, consistently", she said.

"This isn't about a photo op on Hollywood Blvd," she wrote. "This is about celebrating the permanency of Carrie's legacy in this industry, taking her place with a star on the iconic walk of fame alongside our parents."

Lourd responded in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter. "I apologize to anyone reading this for feeling the need to defend myself publicly from these family members," she wrote.

"But unfortunately, because they publicly attacked me, I have to publicly respond. The truth is I did not invite them to this ceremony. They know why.

"Days after my mom died, her brother and her sister chose to process their grief publicly and capitalize on my mother's death, by doing multiple interviews and selling individual books for a lot of money, with my mom and my grandmother's deaths as the subject.

"I found out they had done this through the press. They never consulted me or considered how this would affect our relationship. The truth of my mom's very complicated relationship with her family is only known by me and those who were actually close to her.

"Though I recognize they have every right to do whatever they choose, their actions were very hurtful to me at the most difficult time in my life. I chose to and still choose to deal with her loss in a much different way."