Sad details have been revealed about the final days of actor Diane Keaton, who died in her native California at the weekend, aged 79.
On Monday (Australian time), her long-time friend songwriter Carole Bayer Sager said she was surprised by Keaton’s appearance when she last saw her.
“I saw her two or three weeks ago, and she was very thin,” Sager told People magazine. “She had lost so much weight.”
Sager, an Oscar and Grammy award winner who co-wrote Keaton’s only solo single, First Christmas, said she had seen little of her friend this year because Keaton had spent months in Palm Springs after the wildfires in California earlier in the year.
“She had to go to Palm Springs because her house had been damaged inside, and they had to clean everything,” Sager said.
“She was down there for a while, and when she came back, I was kind of stunned by how much weight she’d lost.”
But she said Keaton remained “a magic light for everyone”.
“I just loved her. 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,” she said.
Keaton had also previously been open about life-long struggles with cancer and bulimia. She was first diagnosed with skin cancer at age 21.
“It’s a family history,” she told The Los Angeles Times in 2015.
“I remember my Auntie Martha had skin cancer so bad they removed her nose. My father had basal skin cancer and my brother had it. It’s tricky with this skin cancer. That’s why you’ve got to put the sunblock on.”
“Back in my 20s, I didn’t pay attention much. I didn’t research and didn’t really care and that was stupid because it’s dogged me my entire adult life, even recently. I didn’t start sun care until my 40s.”
Decades later, Keaton was diagnosed with squamous cell cancer, which took two surgeries to remove.
Some actors play emotions. Diane Keaton lived inside them.
Diane Keaton embodied the contradictions of being human: funny and fragile, bright and bruised, always achingly honest. For decades, she filled every frame with warmth, wit, and wonder. A Best Actress Oscar winner and… pic.twitter.com/BqjewFW4MO
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) October 11, 2025
She had also previously revealed becoming self-conscious about her body after being asked to lose 4½ kilograms for a part on Broadway.
“All I did was feed my hunger, so I am an addict,” she told Dr Oz in 2014. “It’s true. I’m an addict in recovery, I’ll always be an addict. I have an addictive nature to me.”
Keaton said she would eat 20,000 calories a day, only to throw up.
“Typical dinner was a bucket of chicken, several orders of fries with blue cheese and ketchup, a couple TV dinners, a quart of soda, pounds of candy, a whole cake and three banana cream pies,” she said.
She eventually recovered from her eating disorder, after seeking mental health support.
“I have nothing to hide. It’s not relevant, but for me it feels good,” she wrote in her 2011 book Then Again.
“I think I’m a sister to all the rest of the women, and I’m sure men as well, who have had some kind of eating disorder, and I’m a part of the team.”
A source told People that Keaton “declined very suddenly, which was heartbreaking for everyone who loved her”.
“In her final months, she was surrounded only by her closest family, who chose to keep things very private. Even long-time friends weren’t fully aware of what was happening,” they said.
I cant! 💔💔💔 Diane Keaton was such a talent and a BIG part of my career. She directed two videos of mine – "Heaven Is A Place on Earth" and the video for "I Get Weak."
She was kind and eccentric and I was blessed to know her. RIP Diane, you will be missed. 💔 pic.twitter.com/PbDVNQsJh8— Belinda Carlisle 💙 (@belindacarlisle) October 11, 2025
In March, Keaton put her “dream home” in Brentwood, California, up for sale – after previously declaring she would stay there forever.
“Up until just a few months ago, she’d walk her dog every day. She was usually dressed the same, with a hat and her signature sunglasses, regardless of the weather,” another source said.
“She was always very nice, funny and chatty. She’d talk to her dog like he was a person. She was eccentric and had this old-school Hollywood aura,”
“She was very, very special.”
Tributes have flooded in for Keaton. Bette Midler, who starred with her in The First Wives Club, described her as “brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary,” while Marvin’s Room actor Leonardo DiCaprio said she was “one of a kind”.
Disgraced director Woody Allen, with whom Keaton had a long relationship, was said to be “extremely distraught and surprised and upset”.
“It makes him think of his own mortality,” a source told People.
Keaton, who never married, is survived by her two children, Dexter, 29, and Duke, 25.
