Michelle Williams Regrets Talking About Heath Ledger's Death

USMagazine, Wednesday, January 5, 2011, 8:59am (PST)

Michelle Williams has a bone to pick with the folks at "Nightline." The ABC News program recently aired an interview with the "Blue Valentine" actress in which she opened up about the January 2008 death of Heath Ledger, her ex-boyfriend and father to her daughter Matilda, 5.

"It all becomes rather tricky [talking about Ledger] because I don't want to say something without resonance but then I don't want to go too far," Williams, 30, tells writer Kevin Sessums in an interview on The Daily Beast.

"I just had an experience with 'Nightline' that got edited in such a way that seemed as if I did go too far," the Golden Globe nominee says. "It was a three-hour interview that was edited in such a way that was devastating to me."

She continues: "They used those few quotes and the way they edited the piece to sell the interview, and it appeared as if I were breaking some kind of silence and sitting down with the express purpose to discuss something that is very private to me."

The actress says it's still a "struggle" because she yearns to discuss the memories with close pals off the record.

"I experienced a lot of loss after his death," she offers. "I lost my city because of all the paparazzi descending upon us. I actually lost my journal during that time, oddly enough. I literally couldn't hold on to anything. It felt as if things were literally slipping through my fingers. Things were just streaming away from me. I lost my sense of humor. I'm still sort of looking for that."

Overall, Williams is feeling cheerier these days, however. Christmas with Matilda was "a really good one," she says. "[Matilda] wrote two letters to Santa the night before. The first one was 'Dear Santa, How is your wife, Mrs. Claus?' The second was 'Dear Santa, I hope you have a good summer next year.'"

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