Health Update: Health Update: Laura Dern opens up about late mother Diane Ladd’s terminal illness – What Experts Say– What Experts Say.
Laura Dern is honoring her late mother’s legacy.
In 2018, Dern’s mother, Diane Ladd, was diagnosed with a progressive lung disease called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and given three to six months to live. In November 2025, Ladd died at 89, at home with Dern by her side after seven years spent defying the terminal diagnosis.
Now, the Oscar-winning actress is continuing their shared campaign, “Beyond the Scars,” to bring awareness to the condition, which causes irreversible damage to the lungs.
“It’s not easy to talk about a loved one that you’ve lost and the very reason why,” Dern, 58, tells USA TODAY. “And yet, I can feel my mom’s passion in her drive to help others with what she went through.”
Along with campaign partner Boehringer Ingelheim, Dern hopes to help others living with IPF access early intervention – something Ladd didn’t receive.
Misdiagnoses of Diane Ladd’s terminal illness led to ‘deep heartbreak’
For years, Ladd’s symptoms – shortness of breath, acid reflux, coughing, bouts of pneumonia – were misdiagnosed as asthma, allergies and esophageal issues. But “she was happy, in a way,” Dern explains. “She didn’t want to be sick.”
After imaging showed a “spider web” of scarring on her lungs, she was diagnosed with IPF, a form of interstitial lung disease (ILD).
Common symptoms of ILD include shortness of breath, a dry and persistent cough and fatigue. They are frequently attributed to more common conditions such as pneumonia, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or congestive heart failure, resulting in years of delayed diagnosis for some patients. Although considered a rare disease, IPF affects approximately 3 million people worldwide and more than 100,000 Americans.
The doctors looked at Dern and said, “Your mother has three to six months to live. Be delicate with her. There’s nothing we can do.” Ladd had been sitting beside her, but wasn’t addressed directly.
“My mother’s like, ‘First of all, I’m right here. What do you mean?’” Dern recalls. “Even then, in that devastating piece of news, (she had to) start to advocate for herself.”
Despite Ladd’s limited prognosis, they found an “incredible pulmonologist,” learned about oxygen therapy and medical options and Ladd began using an inhaler and portable oxygen.
But “if she had the diagnosis earlier, she could have supported her lung health for a lot longer. And that was a deep heartbreak,” Dern says. “She wants people to not be afraid.”
Taking walks, managing Ladd’s health brought the mother-daughter duo closer
As her mother’s caregiver, Dern witnessed firsthand the emotional and physical challenges faced by both patients and loved ones following an IPF diagnosis, but navigating these hardships brought her and Ladd closer to each other.
The “best thing” they decided to do for Ladd’s health was to take walks. Dern says they were only able to start with two minutes, but eventually worked their way up to 15-minute walks. Some days were harder than others.
“It’s so fatiguing this disease, but she kept fighting for it, and I learned to fight for her by, at times, making her do these walks, and I had to distract her because it was painful,” Dern says.
But the worry that their time together was uncertain lingered. They began recording their conversations, creating an archive of their memories that could be passed along as stories for Ladd’s grandchildren.
They would discuss not only their favorite memories, but the hard things in life, too. Ladd would tell Dern, “That’s why they call it getting it off your chest.”
“For her, she felt like she could breathe easier in this process. That was a huge part of our journey,” Dern says. The duo went on to write a book, “Honey, Baby, Mine,” from that journey together.
Throughout their award-winning careers, Ladd cared deeply about their legacy.
“The legacy of our close relationship – an only child of an only child. The legacy of learning to single parent from my mother, who is a single parent,” Dern says. “My mom would always brag like, ‘Can you believe we made Oscar history? We were the only mother and daughter ever both nominated for Oscars and in a film together.”
Even through the painful moments of Ladd’s illness, she wanted their advocacy to be part of that legacy.
‘Helping each other is the legacy’
Dern says her mother was a “profoundly independent being,” and being forced to depend on an oxygen machine and wear a cannula was difficult and scary for her. But the moment she had to “surrender,” she was ready to fight for other people.
Dern told Ladd it was OK to keep her private life private. She had been a public figure her whole life; she was entitled to privacy in these painful moments.
But Ladd never wavered in the messaging. She wanted people to be educated on the condition so “they can arm their lives with more joy, instead of living in fear because they don’t really know what’s happening,” Dern recounts.
“She’s really taught me that this is the joyful thing. Helping each other is the legacy,” Dern says.