Heather Duffy admitted "everything is a little more complicated" now following the death of her best friend, Anne Heche, as she returned to their "Better Together" podcast for the first time since the late actress died in August.
Duffy began the 36-minute recording by telling their "tribe" of listeners that the podcast was "recorded a month ago" and she was deep in the process of keeping Heche's memory alive.
Heather said she was "working to get the book that she’d almost completed over the finish line with the publisher" before noting that Anne's second memoir "was written in large part for this tribe. "It's about getting over abuse and other struggles with her personal stories intertwined."
Heche died Aug. 11 of "inhalation and thermal injuries" following a car collision in Mar Vista, California, the week before. She was 53. Her manner of death was listed as an accident in a report released by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner.
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"Please go easy on me, this was a tough one. Love you all," Duffy said of her best friend, who she met at a tennis club 13 years ago.
"This has been incredibly difficult, but the one thing in all of this that has been clear to me after all the emails and text messages and Instagram messages from all of our listeners," Duffy said. "I just want to tell you all from Anne, that you guys were everything to her."
She added, "You guys are the ones that mattered to her and you guys are the ones that matter to me."
"This podcast has been so much fun for me and Anne. It’s meant so much more to us than you will ever know. One of the things that I've found that's so remarkable during this past month or so is that our own podcast has actually helped me get through this horrible time."
Heather thanked fans for "support and love and kindness" during the difficult time.
Duffy said the podcast has been "the gateway to a community that was so important for us to create, and it’s a s----y way to find out that we created it, but it’s so appreciated and Anne would be so tickled over it. It was, of all of the projects that Anne did, you guys were the ones that mattered to her the most. She loved it."
"Anne was somebody who would go into a restaurant for dinner with the most famous person in the world, and come out knowing more about the person who served them dinner than she probably did the famous person she was at dinner with."
Duffy said they did the podcast "as an outlet. She enjoyed it so, so much."
"Anne was somebody who despite all of the hardships she had in life - and she had them, she had them — she still woke up every day seeking joy and happiness. She was not a negative person, and she easily could have been. I think that there's a lot of lessons for us all to learn from Anne, and to take with us, and one of them is her optimism. Her sheer joy and optimism."
"I'm at a loss, to be honest, now, without her here. That's something that I'm still wrapping my head around. What this world looks like without her in it. But I can say one thing, while she was here, she made the most of it and that's the lesson that I'm going to take from her. She made the most of it. She put her mark on this world in such a way."
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Duffy discussed Heche coming out in the ‘90s and how "ahead of her time" she was in standing for gender-free love.
"She loved the person’s soul, and that's something that I don't think anybody had done up until her. I don't think anybody had stood up for that up until her. We're just now catching up to that idea. She paid the price for that."
A huge lesson Duffy learned from Anne throughout the last few months is, "The impact she made on this world, it matters."
"The choices that we make, that make the world better, those are the choices that matter and those are the choices that we should pay attention to, and that is what Anne stood for her entire life."
She ended the podcast with, "I love you Anne, always and forever."
Heche was taken off life support Aug. 14 after being declared brain-dead following the car crash the week before.
She suffered a "severe anoxic brain injury" and remained "in a coma" under medical care at the Grossman Burn Center in West Hills for the opportunity to donate her organs through the OneLegacy Foundation.
Heche was cremated and her ashes will be placed in a mausoleum at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. In a statement to the Associated Press, Heche's son, Laffoon, said that he and his brother, Atlas, "are convinced our mom would love the site we have chosen for her; it's beautiful, serene, and she will be among her Hollywood peers."
Laffoon, 20, passed another legal hurdle last week in his ongoing court battle over her estate as Heche's ex, James Tupper, was denied his petition to be named guardian ad litem over their son, Atlas, 13.
"We are pleased—but not surprised—with the court’s ruling this morning denying James’ petition to appoint himself guardian ad litem for Atlas," Laffoon's lawyer, Bryan Phipps, said in a statement released to Fox News Digital.
"We look forward to the court resolving Homer’s petition at the next hearing and, in the meantime, Homer will continue to diligently administer the Estate pursuant to his authority as Special Administrator."
