Hollywood icon Goldie Hawn broke down during an emotional tribute to her friend, neighbor and former co-star Diane Keaton, who died of pneumonia on Oct. 11. Keaton, 79, was remembered at The Hollywood Reporter‘s Women in Entertainment Gala, which was held at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Wednesday. Hawn, 80, starred in 1996’s The First Wives Club with Keaton and Bette Midler. Through tears, she recalled learning of Keaton’s death. “She can’t be gone. She just cannot be gone,” Hawn said. “No one like that should ever die. She just brought so much joy, so much life, so much exuberance. She was like lightning in a bottle. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t do, there wasn’t any world that she couldn’t live in, she was just an extraordinary human being.” Keaton also reminisced about their 1996 hit. “She was very tenacious,” Hawn said. “She’s an incredibly hard worker. At the same time, she would come into the makeup trailer, which is my favorite thing, and she had a different hat on every day.” Sarah Paulson, who starred with Keaton in The Other Sister, also paid tribute at the event, calling the star one of “the great loves of my life.”

Goldie Hawn Gives Emotional Speech About Dear Friend Diane Keaton: ‘No One Like That Should Ever Die’

Goldie Hawn, who starred in The First Wives Club with the late film icon Diane Keaton, paid tribute to her dear friend after her death as she was honored at The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Gala.

On Dec. 3, both Hawn and Sarah Paulson attended the Women in Entertainment Gala in Los Angeles, Calif., to help honor Keaton by giving speeches about the actress, with Good Morning America sharing a video of Hawn’s emotional message.

Hawn began by admitting that it was “really hard” for her to put the speech together, saying, “I write, and then I cry. And then I write, and then I cry.” She then opened up about how the two lived right near each other, with Hawn’s house above Keaton’s.

“It was just the greatest thing knowing that she was just below me,” she said. “I would go and do my flowers and stuff, my rose garden, and it was right on the edge there. And I remember looking over and wondering, what in the world is she doing now?”

Hawn admitted, “She was always on my mind. She was so close to me,” before recalling the moment that she found out that Keaton had died.

“I happened to learn when I was in my backyard. And I went over to my backyard, to my rose garden, and I just looked down at her house and said, ‘She can’t be gone, she just cannot be gone. No one like that should ever die,'” the Overboard star emotionally said.

Hawn’s deep praise for Keaton as both an artist and person continued, “She just brought so much joy, so much life, so much exuberance. She was like lightning in a bottle. There wasn’t anything that she couldn’t do, there wasn’t any world that she couldn’t live in.”

The 80-year-old mentioned Keaton’s talents beyond acting, noting that she wrote books, produced projects, and even directed.

Her last comments about her close friend were arguably the most touching. She described Keaton as a star, telling the audience, “I think that she is a star. And if we can have a fantasy, which I do, that stars are really people who died a long time ago that did something really good for the world, I think maybe that’s where she is right now.”

Hawn concluded her speech, looking choked up and holding in her emotions, before she stepped away from the podium to allow Paulson her turn to speak.

Keaton died on Oct. 11 at the age of 79 from pneumonia. After news broke of her death, Hawn shared a tribute to her on social media, writing, “How do we say goodbye? What words can come to mind when your heart is broken? You never liked praise, so humble, but now you can’t tell me to ‘shut up’ honey. There was, and will be, no one like you.”

In her Dec. 3 speech, Hawn referenced her Instagram tribute, acknowledging the pressure she felt when crafting the message and the difficulty in trying to sum up her emotions about Keaton in such a small space.

Luckily, she got a chance to pay tribute to her late friend on a bigger stage at the Women in Entertainment Gala, leaving fans everywhere touched by the speech.

Diane Keaton Finally Achieved a Life-Long Dream Months Before Her Death

Actress Diane Keaton, who died on Oct. 11, is well-known for her acting career, including impressive roles in projects like The Godfather, Father of the Bride, Annie Hall and more, but surprisingly, acting wasn’t her main passion in life—it was singing.

In November 2024, after years of wishing for a career in music, Keaton finally released her first-ever solo music, a holiday song called “First Christmas.” When it was released near the end of the month, Keaton shared the big news with fans, sharing that she was “SO EXCITED” about it.

The single was well-received by fans, leading Keaton to share a sweet message in which she thanked fans for “the most beautiful gift I could ever imagine.”

“This morning, my heart is filled with gratitude for each and every one of you,” she began. “Your comments, your stories, and the way you’ve shared your own ‘First Christmas’ journeys have touched me deeply. It reminds me of the peace we find in the love and memories we hold close.”

She concluded, “When we share these together, we are never alone.” Unfortunately, Keaton was unable to release any more solo music before her death.

Keaton Described Singing as Her Main Passion

Keaton was very open throughout her career about her love of singing and how it was the one thing she really wanted to do, but her life just didn’t work out that way. In an interview for Cinephilia & Beyond in 2015, Keaton said, “Singing was the first thing. Music. I mean, when you think about it music is first with me.”

“It fills the emptiness of the soul, God, music is the ultimate revelation,” she went on, talking about how much singing and music meant to her. Keaton called music “by far the greatest of all the arts to just place you into a moment and that’s thrilling.”

While she tried to pursue a career in music at different points in her life, it never quite worked out. She sang songs for a few film soundtracks over the years, but it wasn’t until months before her death that she came out with her own original music.

Keaton Pursued Her Dream of Being a Singer in Her 20s

The Family Stone actress pursued a career as a singer in her younger years, before her acting career really took off.

“I had a fantasy of being a nightclub singer that I carried through even into my early 20s,” she told the publication Metro North in 2014. “I sang a couple of gigs, as they call them, but I was not very good. I began to understand that I was not going to be a singer.”

She went on, claiming that her voice had some shortcomings that contributed to her lack of success, saying, “I’ve always loved to sing but I’m aware of the limitations of my voice. It was always a disappointing voice. I took singing lessons for years, but it was a very small voice.”

At the time of the interview, Keaton got an opportunity to sing on the soundtrack of her movie, And So It Goes, co-starring Michael Douglas and Rob Reiner, performing the songs “It Could Happen to You,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “Blue Moon,” “Something to Talk About,” and “The Shadow of Your Smile.” She seemed thrilled about getting the chance to sing the five songs, noting how meaningful the moment was for her.

“I never thought I’d ever sing again,” Keaton admitted in the 2014 interview before sharing her gratitude for having the opportunity, saying that to “have the possibility of singing four songs and one song all the way through was a dream come true.”