Carrie Fisher was once James Blunt's "therapist"

The actress and writer hosted Blunt her at house for four months back in 2006. “He ended up using my bathroom a lot because it has a piano in there and the acoustics are good," she explained in a 2006 Vanity Fair interview."

Blunt rose to the rank of captain in the British army and his troop worked ahead of the front lines locating and targeting Serb forces for the 1999 NATO bombing campaign. He famously refused an order to forcibly take Pristina International Aiport from Russian occupation, citing the consequences of such an action.

“I did become his therapist,” Fisher told Vanity Fair in November 2006. “He was a soldier. This boy has seen awful stuff. Every time James hears fireworks or anything like that, his heart beats faster, and he gets ‘fight or flight.’ You know, he comes from a long line of soldiers dating back to the 10th century. He would tell me these horrible stories. He was a captain, a reconnaissance soldier. I became James’s therapist. So it would have been unethical to sleep with my patient.”

Fisher always joked that her home was a place for "wandering Brits" to rest up and Blunt spoke of his stay there to The Independent, saying: "Carrie fed me soup, showed me old movies and put a cardboard figure of her in Star Wars outside my room to protect me."

Blunt's reaction to Fisher's death over on Twitter yesterday was equally poignant and heartbreaking.