Billy Crystal has spent much of his life making people laugh, but one recent year asked him to do something very different. The actor and comedian revealed that he spoke at seven memorials in 2025, a painful stretch that unfolded as he was also dealing with the destruction of his longtime Pacific Palisades home and the deaths of several people close to him.
Crystal, 78, opened up about that period while discussing the role writing has played in helping him make sense of grief.
Billy Crystal Reveals He Spoke at Seven Memorials
In an interview with Playbill published Friday, October 2, Crystal reflected on how much loss arrived in a short period.
“Honestly, it always has been. I realized the other day when we were talking about this. In 2025, I spoke at seven memorials; two of them were public, at the Oscars for the Reiners. Two of the others were for my manager of 45 years; I wrote his eulogy for the Hollywood Reporter. And then the same week, another great close friend. So, it just kept happening over and over and over.”
The losses came during an already difficult chapter for Crystal and his family. Their Pacific Palisades home of 46 years was destroyed in the fires, taking decades of belongings and family history with it.
Why Does Billy Crystal Turn to Writing During Grief?
For Crystal, putting words to loss is something he learned at a remarkably young age.
“I realized the first time I experienced loss, I wrote a eulogy for my father. I was 15, and that was the first one I did,” he said.
Crystal explained that the process gave him something to hold onto when everything else felt disordered.
“I remember it helping me then, and it’s helped me now to put order to the chaos. It’s not something that I like to do. But when it happens, it’s how I can help myself get through things and help other people get through things.”
Who Has Billy Crystal Publicly Remembered?
Some of Crystal’s most difficult goodbyes have unfolded in front of millions.
“Sometimes it’s been very public. When Robin [Williams] died, I eulogized for him on the Emmys. [Muhammad] Ali’s funeral, I was asked to be one of the eulogists for him,” he recalled.
Other losses, he said, are carried much more privately.
“So, sometimes it’s very public, but other times the eulogy happens inside you. You try to put an order to the sorrow.”
How Is Billy Crystal Channeling His Own Loss?
Crystal has also turned the loss of his home into his Broadway show, “860,” named for the address where he and his wife, Janice, built their family life. He s
He began filming the fire and its aftermath on his phone before realizing the material could become something larger.
“I started writing, and the writing took me out of the horror,” Crystal said.
After a year marked by repeated goodbyes, writing remains one of the ways Crystal has found to keep moving through them.
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‘When Harry Met Sally’ Actor Billy Crystal Opens Up About Devastating Year of Grief After Speaking at 7 Memorials