Liza Minnelli reveals last words to mother Judy Garland in new memoir

Liza Minnelli has a lot to say about Hollywood, sobriety and former lovers in her new memoir. But the most memorable pages of “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This One!” are the ones she dedicates to her fractious relationship with her mother, Judy Garland.

In addition to revealing how her mother’s drug use shaped her ​childhood, Minnelli also writes about the pair as performers – sometimes Garland would encourage them to sing side-by-side, and other times the “creative tension” was palpable, Minnelli writes.

We’re recapping everything we learned from Minnelli’s memoir, but here’s what ⁠she wrote about the moments before Garland died in 1969.

Liza Minnelli’s last words to Judy Garland

Minnelli was 23 years old when Garland died ‌of an accidental overdose at age 47. She writes that the ​last time they spoke, it was about Garland’s upcoming nuptials to her fifth husband, Mickey Deans:

“Mama, I can’t make it to your wedding. I’m making a movie for Otto Preminger! And Mama, you know what he’s like. But I promise to come to the next one!”

Minnelli writes that Garland laughed ⁠and told her, “All right, Liza. All right.” 

Though Garland’s death has been subject to ‌much speculation, Minnelli maintains in her ‌memoir that “whatever happened, my mother did not commit suicide.” 

“To this day, there are people who refuse to believe this. Well, I knew my mother. They did not,” she ⁠writes.

Judy Garland intended to write a memoir, Minnelli writes

Though Garland never published a memoir in her lifetime, Minnelli reveals she started writing one to “share her innermost feelings and set the record straight.” Some ‌of these autobiographical tapes have made their ‌way to YouTube or other platforms in recent years.

Here’s an excerpt of Garland’s autobiographical recordings, as published in “Kids”:

“The time has come for me to talk, to put the pattern straight. I am outraged, outraged about ⁠many things I have read about myself… written about in a shocking manner, smeared, ​scandalized, and I’m sick of it. … ⁠I’ve come ​to a time in my life when I don’t want it anymore and I can’t rise above it.

“First of all, I don’t understand, I don’t honestly understand, why I’ve been made the victim of so many untruths. Perhaps you don’t understand what it’s like to pick ⁠up the paper and read things about yourself that aren’t the truth, read loathsome things that have nothing to do with your life, or you or your heart or your beliefs or your kindnesses or your willingnesses. … I’ve ⁠spent years trying to please through singing or acting. There’s nothing wrong with that.

“And yet I’ve constantly been written about or talked about, by certain individuals that I’ll get to later, as an unfit person. … Well, what kind of people are they, what kind of business are ⁠they in? They’re dead people. But they’ve ‌tried to kill me along the way, but by God they won’t! ​Because I’m mad!”