on PinterestLaura Dern’s mom, the actor Dianne Ladd, recently passed away from a rare lung disease.
on PinterestLaura Dern’s mom, the actor Dianne Ladd, recently passed away from a rare lung disease. Photography courtesy of BeyondtheScars.com
- Academy Award-winning actor Laura Dern is sharing her late mother’s journey with a rare lung disease.
- Dern is carrying out her mom Diane Ladd’s mission of spreading awareness about pulmonary fibrosis.
- The “Big Little Lies” and “Jurassic Park” star reveals open and honest experiences with her beloved mother.
In November 2025, legendary actor Diane Ladd passed away at 89-years-old. Since 2018, she lived with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), one of the most common types of interstitial lung disease (ILD).
For the last 7 years of her life, Ladd and her daughter, academy award-winning actor Laura Dern, advocated for lung health.
Dern described the news of her mother’s diagnosis as heartbreaking; Ladd was initially told she only had a few months to live. But that timeline was extended when she found a pulmonologist who suggested medication, oxygen therapy, and pulmonary rehab.
“[The] two of us knew from pulmonary rehab she could support her lungs with breathing, with movement, with walking, and so, with that clarity, we started to tag team as partners on getting her walking a little bit further every day,” Dern told Healthline.
“[Because] we didn’t know how long she had, we decided to have the conversations we’d never had and I would archive them in my phone for her grandchildren to have about her childhood, her favorite memories, her first movies she worked on, how she met my father.”
This inspired the mother-daughter duo to co-write their memoir “Honey, Baby, Mine,” which chronicles Ladd’s journey with IPF.
“[She] was like, ‘Imagine if other people knew what to look out for, knew to get imaging so they could get proper diagnosis, and knew that there was a community of people also struggling when you get a diagnosis like that,’” said Dern.
Recognizing early signs of pulmonary fibrosis
To honor her mother, Dern carries on their work through the awareness campaign Beyond the Scars, launched by Boehringer Ingelheim, which empowers others to recognize the signs of pulmonary fibrosis (PF).
This initiative encourages early screening and working with specialists to develop a management plan that can help maintain lung function.
“Pulmonary fibrosis is a disease characterized by progressive lung scarring, which often results in permanent damage and reduces quality of life,” John Odackal, MD, pulmonary and critical care specialist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, told Healthline.
Odackal said that early detection of pulmonary fibrosis permits timely treatment, which can prevent or delay the life-changing symptoms associated with pulmonary fibrosis such as cough and progressive shortness of breath.
Jeffrey Horowitz, MD, director of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Interstitial Lung Disease Program, told Healthline that medications can reduce the progression of disease, but cannot reverse or cure the disease.
“This is why ongoing research in IPF and other forms of progressive pulmonary fibrosis is essential,” Horowitz said.
For those who meet certain criteria, Horowitz said that supplemental oxygen can help them be more active, while pulmonary rehabilitation programs can help improve endurance.
“It is also important to
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