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Ricki Lake will always be able to keep a piece of the home that was destroyed in the devastating 2025 Los Angeles wildfires close to her heart.
“So, I’m here at the bottom of the hill where I used to live before my house burned down,” Lake, 57, began in a Saturday, March 14, Instagram video. “Today is a really exciting and emotional day [because] this company, Eterneva, created a diamond out of the ashes from my home.”
Lake’s property was destroyed in the wildfires that swept through southern California in January 2025. (The natural disaster wiped out thousands of acres, killing at least 31 people and destroying a reported 18,000 homes and structures.)
“John Bonny … he was the shepherd of my property and my house and the building of my original house,” Lake recalled on Saturday. “Once it burned down, he also was the one to be the first one on the scene. When Eterneva approached me, John was the one who got the actual ashes and brought them to [the company].”
Bonny, for his part, revealed that he first picked up rubble from the main gate to symbolize “the entry into the home.”
“It was always, like, ‘The gates are always open,’” he told Lake. “Ricki’s house and her philosophy was always open to friends and family. We took a sample from the original wood gate that was on the property, we took it from the master bedroom — which was your power point with Christian [Evans, her late ex-husband] when you first found the home and with Ross [Burningham, her husband] now.”
Bonny also collected a sample of the ashes from a tool shed on the grounds and near a tree adjacent to the “ceremonial circle” where Evans’s ashes were buried. (Lake was married to jewelry designer Evans from 2012 to 2015. He died two years later at age 46.)
“Having something so beautiful created from something so tragic is such a beautiful lesson in life,” Lake acknowledged of the sparkler. “It was just perfect [and] poetic. Thank you, I will wear this with so much honor and pride and joy.”
Eterneva compiled the ashes and set it in a pale green diamond on a gold backing and chain.
“Green is the heart chakra,” Lake explained of the design. “I had the idea to put a phoenix [illustration] on the back, and it also has the date of the fire: January 7th. It’s just a reminder of how far I’ve come.”
In her Instagram caption, Lake called the diamond “one of the most poetic and sentimental gifts” she’s ever received.
“Everything from where the ashes came from, the science behind it and the finishing touches are so symbolic to my experience,” she wrote. “[It is] proof that something beautiful can come from tragedy and sadness. Home is LITERALLY where the heart is.”
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