Catherine O’Hara’s brother shares new emotional details about actress's final days
Topics: Home Alone, Celebrity, Podcasts
Madison Burgess
Featured Image Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Image
Topics: Home Alone, Celebrity, Podcasts
The brother of the late Catherine O'Hara has revealed heartbreaking details from the time leading up to her death.
The Home Alone and Schitt's Creek star died at the age of 71 on 30 January from a pulmonary embolism, after she was diagnosed with cancer the year before.
In a statement released at the time, the star's agent confirmed she had died at her home in Los Angeles 'following a brief illness'.
The news came as a huge shock to fans around the world, as O'Hara had chosen not to disclose her health issues publicly, and nobody knew she was battling cancer.
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Now, her brother, Michael P. O’Hara, has shed light on her final days and revealed the emotional way he believes his sister said goodbye to him.
Speaking on his podcast, Dreams of Our Loved Ones, he said that O'Hara 'wasn’t talking much in the end'.
He recalled: "She didn’t really want to talk on the phone… And she didn’t live close by, she’s in Los Angeles."
However, in the days leading up to his sister's passing, he dreamt he was hugging her, which he interpreted as a 'sort of goodbye.'
Michael said, "Recently, I had a death in the family. Very unexpected and very, very sad. I always cherish the times I can meet with a loved one in the dream state.
"Actually, oddly enough, I had a dream a few days before she died, my sister. And I was hugging her, which was really beautiful. And I guess it was sort of a goodbye."
He said that in his dream, she was ‘so happy’ and renovating her home in ‘the other world’, which he ‘visited’ in his sleep.
The podcast host continued: ‘I was visiting her, and she was in a new house, and it was being renovated, and she was really busy choosing furniture and couches.
"And she said, “You can sleep here anytime, Michael. You can come over and stay any time.'"
He emotionally described how the dream reminded him of a specific time in his life when he would frequently stay at her house.
Michael said: "It reminded me of when... she was in SCTV [Second City Television] and I was apprenticing at the Windsor Arms Hotel. I would go over and sleep over at her place some nights because she had an extra bedroom.
"Yeah, pretty cool. But yeah, it was beautiful. She was just so happy and very busy in the other world that she's now in... it’s beautiful."
He concluded: "We all have our own experiences that are related to us and our own deceased loved ones and we're all interconnected and the love, you know, continues no matter what. They’re always with us."
We're not crying, you are.