Lacianne Carriere has shared a heartbreaking new tribute to her older brother, "Breaking Bad" star RJ Mitte, nearly two weeks after his death at 34. In an Instagram post on Friday, October 23, the 22-year-old wrote that she had lost not just a brother, but her "other half" and a father figure, and that life has not felt real since the phone call that changed everything.
"Your strawberry Fanta was still sitting on my coffee table"
Carriere's tribute, shared alongside a carousel of photos and videos from across her brother's life, opened with a small, devastating detail. "There are just no words. You were just here," she wrote. "Your strawberry Fanta was still sitting on my coffee table when I got the call. Life hasn't felt real since then."
"Rj you were my everything," she continued. "I just lost my other half. I lost my brother but I also lost my father... Every single aspect of my personality is because of your influence. My music taste, my film taste the video games I love... because of you I am a collector, you taught me that even the smallest piece of paper can be a precious memory later on."
A brother who became a father
The tribute echoes the eulogy Carriere delivered at Mitte's celebration of life on October 16 at the Mitte Cultural District in Brownsville, Texas. There, she told mourners that her mother, a single parent, had been paralyzed from the waist down in an accident when Carriere was just two weeks old, and that her brother immediately stepped into a father's role.
"RJ Mitte was my older brother but I not only just lost a brother, I lost my father," she said at the service. "Every kind of music I listen to, everything I watch, every game I play, our mannerisms, and I just really miss my brother." She also spoke of his deep love for Brownsville, saying: "This was his community. He loved it here and he loved all of you and he loved this city."
"You made me, me"
In her new post, Carriere wrote that she has spent the nights since his death sitting with Mitte's closest friends, sharing stories "that could never be said anywhere else." She called him "the life of the party" and "the coolest guy that we all tried to keep up with but never could."
"You made me, me. We had so much more to do, so many more memories to be shared and I don't know if my heart can ever be whole again after losing the biggest piece of it," she wrote. She recalled how he would put on lofi music and tell her to sit in the shower when she was struggling, because it always made her feel better. "I know you're telling me right now that I'll be okay though I don't know how I will," she wrote. "But I promise I'm going to do my hardest and I promise your love will always live through me until the day I see you again."
She closed with a message for anyone struggling: you are not alone, and reaching out for help matters. "I loved you completely. And you loved me the same. That's all. The rest is confetti."
Takeaway: Mitte, who played Walter White Jr. on "Breaking Bad" and lived with cerebral palsy, died on October 12. His sister's tribute is a portrait of a bond that went far beyond fame, a brother who raised her, shaped her, and stayed her closest person.
Watch: Lacianne Carriere's emotional speech at RJ Mitte's celebration of life.
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Heartbreaking (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0