Kaitlyn Dever’s Bittersweet Mother’s Day Homage
Mother’s Day rolled around again, giving Kaitlyn Dever the perfect excuse to make our feeds both misty-eyed and awkwardly reflective. The Booksmart star quietly posted a black-and-white throwback photo of her late mom, captioning it with a line that sounds like it was cribbed straight from a greeting-card factory: “You made everything beautiful.” The tribute landed on Instagram on May 9, pulling at heartstrings across her 1.7 million followers and ensuring no one forgot that yes, she still has feelings about this.
Dever didn’t stop at a single selfie. She followed up with a carousel of candid snapshots—her mom beaming behind a 1990s camcorder, a bouquet of tulips with one perfectly out-of-place daisy, and a polaroid of mother and daughter sharing ice cream cones. The hashtag #MissYouMom trended for a solid two minutes before being overshadowed by coffee-filter flatlays. But don’t worry, there’s always next year.
In her caption, Dever confessed that her mom’s sudden passing in 2019 still feels “like yesterday,” a sentiment fans immediately mourned in the comments. The actress, who rose to fame with roles in Last Man Standing and Unbelievable, made sure to name-drop the one who “taught me to laugh through the bad scripts and to trust my gut when the studio is confused.” That’s right: your mom could solve your career meltdown more efficiently than any publicist.
As part of her throwback series, Dever also shared a short video clip of her mom belting out karaoke classics—bottom lip quivering on the chorus of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” It’s the kind of vintage footage that would’ve gone undocumented if not for middle-child OCD and an early obsession with capturing everything on VHS. Yet here we are, getting emotionally manipulated by 30-second home videos.
Fans and fellow celebrities flooded the post with consoling emojis and personal anecdotes. Zendaya left a bunch of red hearts, while fellow Booksmart costar Beanie Feldstein admitted she “doesn’t know how to adult without [Dever’s mom] cheering from the wings.” So basically, Dever’s family had more fans than most Netflix shows.
If you’re wondering whether this heartfelt tribute means we can expect a career hiatus, fear not: Dever is slated to star in the upcoming season of Dickinson and a high-profile thriller on Apple TV+. Because, of course, tragedy is only a temporary bookmark in a celebrity’s working calendar.
And with that, we’ll wrap up this Mother’s Day memo. Tune in next time for more tear-jerking captions, questionable life milestones, and the ongoing saga of grief meets Hollywood hustle.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and People Magazine, Dotdash Meredith RSS feed
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
