Ricki Lake thanks stranger who recovered 'priceless' family keepsake thought lost in L.A. fires: 'I'm speechless'
- - Ricki Lake thanks stranger who recovered 'priceless' family keepsake thought lost in L.A. fires: 'I'm speechless'
Raechal ShewfeltDecember 9, 2025 at 6:49 PM
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Santiago Felipe/WireImage
Ricki Lake photographed in New York City on Aug. 19
Ricki Lake had a rough time coming to terms with the loss of her family photos in the January wildfires in Los Angeles. She was shocked then to learn that they hadn't been lost after all.
"The craziest thing happened. I can't even process [it]," the actress and former talk show host explained on social media. "My words are not coming."
Lake noted that, as fans know, her house was ruined in Los Angeles' Palisades Fire n January.
"I lost everything," Lake said.
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Or so she thought.
Some friends contacted her over the weekend, flagging a peculiar post from a woman named Patty Scanlon.
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"It was a screenshot of someone on Instagram or Facebook trying to find me," Lake said. The poster was asking "Does anyone have a way to get in touch with Ricki Lake? I found these photos at a freaking flea market."
Lake said that she "couldn’t believe what I was seeing."
"These pictures are so priceless to me. They would be anyway, Patty, but the fact that I lost all of these images in the fire in January. I mean, I thought they were gone forever. I had made peace," Lake said. "It was such a heartache and such a painful thing to kind of come to terms with, that all of these memories are no longer in front of me, they're just in my mind and heart now. But the fact that you found these is unbelievable."
Thanks to projects including Hairspray, Cry-Baby, Serial Mom, and Babycakes, Lake — and her face — are well known. So it didn't take long for Scanlon to recognize her in the box of images, including several of Lake with her son as a baby. Scanlon had purchased them all for just $20.
Ricki Lake/Instagram
Ricki Lake and her son, Milo, together
"When I got home and started looking through these, all of the sudden I was like, 'Wait a minute, I feel like I know her. That’s Ricki Lake!,'" Patty said. "And then I found a letter. 'Thank you for all the gifts for Milo. Here's some of his recent photos.' Then it made me think, ‘Oh, this person, perhaps they had an estate sale?’ So then I Googled, and I was like, 'Oh, Ricki's son’s name is Milo.' And then I saw that you'd been through the fire. My heart was racing. I was [thinking], 'I gotta contact her. This is so exciting to find these.' I can't believe what a miracle."
Lake, who shares Milo and younger son Owen with ex-husband Rob Sussman, was grateful.
"I really cannot thank you enough for your generosity," she said. "Making the effort to find me and the fact that I'm going to get something back that I thought was lost forever is really … it makes me so happy." She added that the encounter was "leaving me with such a beautiful feeling about the human race."
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
