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Naomi Watts on Losing Her Dad at Age Seven From a Drug Overdose: “I Have Maybe Two Memories of Him”
In August 1976, a seven-year-old Naomi Watts tragically lost her father, Peter Watts, to a drug overdose. And today, the actress is candidly opening up about her dad’s death in a rare interview.
During her sit-down with The Guardian, Naomi admitted she finally saw the first clear photo of her dad — who worked as a sound engineer for Pink Floyd — smiling when the band recently gave her the snapshot.
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“You’ve got to understand, I’ve got maybe three photos of my dad, and maybe two memories,” she explained. “And all of the photos of him are either out of focus or he’s a tiny speck in the background.”
Naomi with her mother in April 2011.
“When he died, my dad hadn’t saved money, and I guess my mom didn’t have any. So they, the band, very kindly… ‘Trust fund’ doesn’t sound right at all. I think they gave my mom a few thousand dollars to help get things under way. A lump sum, to help. It was kind that they did that,” Naomi, 48, continued.
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In a previous interview, the King Kong star’s mother, Myfanway Edwards, spoke out about the family’s devastating loss and revealed her husband’s passing left profound “scars” on Naomi’s childhood.
“It was a shock. His death made Naomi incredibly determined. It had a profound effect on her, as it did on the entire family. [Losing a parent is a] terrible thing to happen to anyone, especially at that age when she needed her dad,” Edwards told the Daily Mail back in 2015.
“He loved going for long walks in the woods with the children and was so loving with them. I loved him deeply, we all did, it was impossible not to. Naomi loves hearing stories about him,” Edwards said of her late husband.
When asked about her father’s death in a 2011 interview with MORE magazine, Naomi — who is mom to two sons with ex-boyfriend Liev Schreiber — said, “Growing up, there was this wondering what he would think of me or what I would think of him. There was a lot of sadness in my life when I was a child. [My mom] had to struggle a lot to bring us up and I have enormous admiration for her.”
