- - Val Kilmer’s Daughter Mercedes Honors Her Late Father on His Birthday, Thanks Friends For ‘Getting Me Through 2025’

Eric AnderssonJanuary 1, 2026 at 9:42 PM

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Michael Tullberg/Getty; Mercedes Kilmer/Instagram

Mercedes Kilmer and her dad Val Kilmer in 2019 (left); Val Kilmer. -

Val Kilmer's daughter Mercedes paid tribute to her late father on his birthday

The actress and singer shared an Instagram carousel featuring 20 photos of the Top Gun actor, who died on April 1

Mercedes also thanked her friends for "getting me through 2025"

Val Kilmer’s daughter Mercedes paid tribute to her late father on his 66th birthday.

In a Dec. 31 Instagram post featuring 20 photos of the actor — who died of pneumonia on April 1 — Mercedes, 34, wrote, “My dad would have been 66 today, born on the last day of the fifties ❤️ so grateful to all my friends for getting me through 2025.”

Mercedes — whose mother is English actress Joanne Whalley, 64, to whom Kilmer was wed from 1988 to 1996 — chose an array of photos featuring the Batman Forever actor through the years, from his childhood to Top Gun and beyond.

She also included photos of Kilmer and Whalley on the set of the 1988 movie Willow — the film where they met — and what appears to be a photo from their wedding day. (Kilmer and Whalley also welcomed son Jack, now 30, during their marriage.)

Mercedes Kilmer/Instagram

Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley.

Mercedes, a singer and actress, enjoyed a close relationship with her father. "My dad is such a smart and creative person that I love hanging out with, even if he wasn't my dad, too," she told PEOPLE in 2020, the year they costarred in the movie Paydirt.

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The movie came three years after Kilmer publicly disclosed that he had been diagnosed with throat cancer. He underwent a tracheotomy that altered his voice and returned to acting with Paydirt, playing a sheriff with a speech disability.

“My dad is so talented, and he’s able to artfully circumvent the limitations of his speech,” Mercedes told PEOPLE. “I learned so much watching him, like how he communicated physically. It expanded what I thought acting was.”

Mercedes Kilmer/Instagram

Val Kilmer.

Kilmer, in turn, praised Mercedes and Jack, calling them "brilliant."

"I am just madly, wildly entertained by them," he told PEOPLE. "My only gripe is that I never see them enough, so I never get enough of the wild entertainment that everyone else gets, but they're really, really, entertaining."

Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection

Val Kilmer, Rick Rossovich and Tom Cruise in 'Top Gun.'

Kilmer made his final on-screen performance in 2022's Top Gun: Maverick, reprising his role as Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, the rival-turned-friend of Tom Cruise's Pete "Maverick" Mitchell.

He made his last public appearance in 2019 alongside Mercedes at the annual Thespians Go Hollywood Gala at Avalon Hollywood.

on People

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”