Diane Keaton’s son, Duke, is mourning the loss of his mother following her death at 79. The 25-year-old was seen for the first time since her passing, leaving the actress’s Los Angeles home on Sunday, according to the New York Post. He wore all black, a backpack, and two silver cross necklaces, a quiet nod to Keaton’s well-known layered “devoted nun” look from the 1990s.
Diane Keaton adopted two kids
Keaton adopted Duke and his sister Dexter, now 29, in her 50s and raised them on her own.
“Motherhood was not an urge I couldn’t resist,” she told Ladies’ Home Journal. “It was more like a thought I’d been thinking for a very long time. So I plunged in.”
Her children mostly stayed out of the public eye but joined her at her Hand & Footprint Ceremony in Los Angeles in August 2022.
When asked what it meant to have them there, Keaton said, “Everything. I love them.”
At the same event, she added, “They have no interest in what I do, which I think is very healthy. We live a relatively normal — well, sort of normal — life.”
Keaton’s family confirmed her death on Saturday in California. A cause of death has not been released.
Friends said her health “declined very suddenly” in recent months. “It was so unexpected,” one told *People*, “especially for someone with such strength and spirit.”
Songwriter Carole Bayer Sager, a longtime friend, said she saw Keaton “two or three weeks” before her death. “She had lost so much weight,” Sager told People, adding that the actress “was very thin.”
Also read: Diane Keaton dies at 79: Inside Godfather actor’s battle against her health struggles
Keaton never revealed any illness publicly. She had previously overcome two battles with skin cancer and an eating disorder.
Her last Instagram post came on April 11, showing her with her golden retriever, Reggie. She had not been seen in public for six months before her death.
