Dexter Keaton’s Heartbreaking First Mother’s Day Without Diane

Seven months after losing her mom, Dexter Keaton faced her first Mother’s Day without Diane — and she didn’t face it quietly. On Sunday, May 10, the 30-year-old shared a carousel of three deeply personal photos on Instagram alongside a caption that said everything a daughter in grief could say.

“First Mother’s Day without you. I miss you more than words can say,” Dexter wrote. “Missing her voice, her hugs, her presence, and everything that made her home. I love you, Mom 🤍.”

The images tell the story of a lifetime together. One shows a young Dexter at the beach with a smiling Diane. Another captures the two of them on Dexter’s wedding day in 2021. The third is quieter — Diane leaning in to kiss her daughter on the cheek in a sun-dappled garden. Together they read like a scrapbook of a relationship that clearly meant everything.

Fans flooded the comments with warmth. “The entire world misses your beautiful, special Mom,” wrote one follower. Another offered, “Happy Mother’s Day, Dexter. I’m sure your mom is sitting in your heart and watching from above. Sending love.”

A Loss That Shook Hollywood

Diane Keaton — Oscar winner, Annie Hall icon, one of the most singular presences American cinema ever produced — died on October 11, 2025, from pneumonia. She was 79. In the immediate aftermath, a spokesperson confirmed her passing to Us Weekly and noted that Dexter and her brother Duke, 26, had asked for privacy as they grieved. Four days later, the family released a statement through People that confirmed the cause of death and offered a window into who Diane really was beyond the screen.

“The Keaton family are very grateful for the extraordinary messages of love and support they have received these past few days on behalf of their beloved Diane, who passed away from pneumonia on October 11,” the statement read. “She loved her animals and she was steadfast in her support of the unhoused community, so any donations in her memory to a local food bank or an animal shelter would be a wonderful and much appreciated tribute to her.”

Diane never married. She adopted Dexter and Duke as a single woman in her 50s and raised them on her own — a choice she once described to Ladies Home Journal with characteristic self-awareness. “Motherhood was not an urge I couldn’t resist,” she said. “It was more like a thought I’d been thinking for a very long time. So I plunged in.” She added, “I think I’m the only one in my generation, and maybe before, who has been a single woman all her life.”

Tattoos, Birthdays, and a Forever Reminder

Mother’s Day isn’t the first milestone Dexter has marked publicly since losing her mom. On January 5 — what would have been Diane’s 80th birthday — Dexter revealed she’d gotten a tattoo in her mother’s honor. The ink reads “La Di Da” in script, with a small heart beside it — a nod to Keaton’s most famous line from the 1977 Woody Allen film Annie Hall. “I miss you, mom 💔🕊️,” Dexter wrote at the time. “Thank you @winterstone for my forever reminder of my wonderful mom.”

Duke was tagged in the same post, showing off his own fresh tribute: “Weird Old World” — another reference to Annie Hall — etched permanently into his skin. The photo also included a shot of Diane and Dexter from behind, arms wrapped around each other, looking out at the water together.

They weren’t alone in marking the day that way. Diane’s close friend Sarah Paulson also got Keaton’s initials — “DK” — tattooed above her wrist for the occasion. The American Horror Story actress shared the image on Instagram with words that barely contained the size of the loss.

“You would have been 80 today,” Paulson, 51, wrote. “Too many deep feelings to put here … I was the luckiest person in the world to have traveled, laughed so hard we cried, watched a million and one movies, really cried, and eaten French fries with you. You. You. Wondrous, singular, YOU. I will miss you till the end of time.”

Dexter’s Mother’s Day post carries that same weight — the specific, irreplaceable ache of missing someone who was one of a kind. “Everything that made her home.” That’s the line that stays with you.