Kate Beckinsale Reflects on Seeing Her Stepfather Die 1 Year After His Death

To mark the first anniversary of her “beloved” late stepfather Roy Battersby’s death, Kate Beckinsale is reflecting its significant impact on her life.

Battersby died on Jan. 10, 2024, at the age of 87, in Los Angeles, surrounded by family, after “a brief period of illness,” according to a statement from the actress at the time.

Next to a photo of Battersby smiling as he held a floral bouquet, Beckinsale, 51, candidly expressed the mixed emotions she still has regarding his death.

“Finding my father‘s [Richard Beckinsale] body alone in the middle of the night at the age of five shaped my entire life. Seeing my beloved stepfather die a year ago today will haunt me forever,” she wrote on Instagram.

Judy Loe, Beckinsale’s mother, married Battersby in March 1997 following Richard’s March 1979 death.

Beckinsale wrote that she tried to prevent Battersby’s death “with every single thing I had” —something she credits as being the reason she’s lost ” family, friendships, at some points my own health, and all the money I had.”

While she said she “would do it again,” she expressed that she continues feeling like she “dreadfully failed” and is trying to console herself “with all the preparation that he did in the last years of his life.”

She continued her post by stating that regardless of feelings of “sense of loss, guilt and failure,” she wanted to write a tribute to honor him “in some small way.”

“He taught me how to be brave. He taught me that it doesn’t matter if people don’t like you as long as you’re doing the right thing, he lost everything fighting for justice for the trade unions, for the Palestinians, living with them in refugee camps in Lebanon for several years making his 1977 documentary The Palestinian, fighting for the miners losing everything in the strikes,” she wrote.

After listing some of Battersby’s other accomplishments, she ended her post by expressing that she is “so lucky” to have been “raised by someone who uncompromisingly knew what was right and lived it. And loved me.”

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“Thank you for being my father. I miss you so much,” she wrote.