In the weeks before her suicide, Julia Roberts‘ half-sister Nancy Motes lashed out at the actress on Twitter, calling her “cruel” and “a bitch.” The two shared a tumultuous relationship — with Roberts accusing Motes of dishing to the press — but the “Normal Heart” actress is still struggling to cope with Motes’ sudden death.
“It’s just heartbreak,” she tells WSJ Magazine, as she begins to tear up. “It’s only been 20 days. There aren’t words to explain what any of us have been through in these last 20 days. It’s hour by hour some days, but you just keep looking ahead.”
Roberts, 46, continues, “You don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone, but there are so many tragic, painful, inexplicable things in the world. But [as with] any situation of challenge and despair, we must find a way, as a family,” she says.
“It’s so hard to formulate a sentence about it outside the weepy huddle of my family.”
But Roberts says she’s managing her grief with meditation.
“Meditation or chanting or any of those things can be so joyous and also very quieting,” she says, noting that she’s introduced the practice to her three children. “We share and just say, ‘This is a way I comfort myself.'”