Jennifer Love Hewitt says media outlets knew that her late mother Patricia had died before she did.

The 45-year-old actress had been in Monaco at the 52nd Monte Carlo Television Festival at the time her mother Patricia Hewitt died at 67 in June 12, 2012, following a battle with cancer.

‘The press knew that my mom had pᴀssed before I did,’ the Waco, Texas native said while promoting her new book Inheriting Magic, and the film it inspired, The Holiday Junkie, at Zibby’s Bookshop in Los Angeles, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The actress, who has three children with husband Brian Hallisay, 46 – daughter Autumn, 10, son Atticus, nine, and son Aidan, three – said ‘it was such a weird thing for’ her the way things unfolded amid the family tragedy.

‘The flight time with me getting back was so long,’ the 9-1-1 actress said. ‘It was like a 10-and-a-half-hour flight, so by the time I arrived, everybody knew.’

Hewitt said that finding out the life-changing news as such followed a problematic pattern she’d dealt with before.

Jennifer Love Hewitt, 45, says media outlets knew that her late mother Patricia had died before she did. Pictured in March in LA 

Hewitt’s mother Patricia Hewitt died at 67 in June 12, 2012 following a battle with cancer 

‘Later on, I was like, but everybody’s always known everything about my life kind of before,’ Hewitt said. ‘Even breakups, people have been like, “He was cheating on you already.” Really, people? Like, why didn’t you tell me?’

Patricia, who worked as a speech-language pathologist, had brought Jennifer from Texas to Los Angeles in 1989 to break into show business; Jennifer began appearing on the show Kids Incorporated that year, later breaking out with roles on the TV show Party of Five and the film I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Read More Jennifer Love Hewitt returns to Lifetime Network to star in and direct The Holiday Junkie

Hewitt told THR that her new book marks the first time she’s spoken in detail about her late parent and the rich legacy she left: ‘I honestly hadn’t ever said that much about my mother after she pᴀssed, because I didn’t have the words.

‘I just didn’t know what to say, and this felt like the right time to talk about her and sort of say, “This is what she left behind.”‘

Hewitt said her late mother had a ritual of holding hands with her as she left to work on her acting projects.

‘I didn’t ask her until probably I was in like my very late 20s, I was like, “Why do we hold the hands? What is this about?”‘ she said. ‘Because I didn’t really get it. And she said, “I want you to take my love and support with you to work during the day. I want you to feel it and know that I’m with you.”

‘And I miss it. It’s the thing I miss the most. I wish I had her hand.’

Hewitt in June of 2022 shared a pH๏τo of herself sitting with her late mother to mark ’10 years since losing’ her mother and ‘best friend.’

Hewitt directed and stars in forthcoming Lifetime film The Holiday Junkie, which was inspired in part by her late mother 

Hewitt has paid memorial to her late mother Patricia via multiple posts on her Instagram account, including this throwback sH๏τ she posted in 2022 

‘Someone told me after losing my mom that the first year would feel impossible, the years after would build strength in me and then the 10 year mark would be an open wound all over again,’ Hewitt said. ‘Because it would feel insane to have been without her that long. They were right.’

Hewitt said that the anniversary felt ‘very raw,’ bringing back painful memories.

‘I will never forget not making it to say goodbye,’ Hewitt said. ‘I will never forget walking into her house that day and hoping somehow she would come around the corner, waking up the day after praying it was all a bad dream.

‘The countless times I called her by accident when something good or bad happened because I forgot she couldn’t pick up.’

Hewitt said that while she’s ‘proud of the way [she’s] handled grief,’ she wishes ‘it wasn’t so painful.’ 

Hewitt’s book Inheriting Magic is slated to be released December 10; it inspired, in part, her forthcoming Lifetime film The Holiday Junkie, which debuts December 14.