Val Kilmer‘s daughter, Mercedes, shared a heartfelt tribute to the late actor several months after his death.
“My dad would have been 66 today, born on the last day of the fifties ❤️,” she wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, December 31, sharing a slideshow of family photos. “So grateful to all my friends for getting me through 2025.”
The post included several pics of Kilmer throughout the years, from childhood to his Hollywood career. One snap featured Kilmer with Mercedes, now 34, and her brother, Jack, now 30.
Kilmer shared his two children with ex-wife Joanne Whalley, to whom he was married from 1988 to 1996. Mercedes’ post included a photo of her parents from when they met on the set of the 1988 movie Willow.
News broke in April 2025 that Kilmer died of pneumonia at age 65. He was previously diagnosed with throat cancer and was shown using a breathing tube in the 2021 documentary Val.
As tributes poured in for the late Top Gun star, his family shared a statement honoring his life and legacy.
Val Kilmer Courtesy of Mercedes Kilmer/Instagram
“Thank you for honoring our extraordinary father’s memory,” their message read. “We are so proud of him and honored to see his legacy celebrated. At this time, we would like to grieve privately.”
Several years before Kilmer’s death, Mercedes opened up about their close bond in an interview with People.
“My dad is such a smart and creative person that I love hanging out with, even if he wasn’t my dad, too,” she said in 2020.
Mercedes starred alongside her father in the movie Paydirt, which marked his return to acting after undergoing a tracheotomy that affected his voice.
“My dad is so talented, and he’s able to artfully circumvent the limitations of his speech,” Mercedes continued. “I learned so much watching him, like how he communicated physically. It expanded what I thought acting was.”
Kilmer returned the praise to his “brilliant” children at the time, gushing over Mercedes and Jack.
“I am just madly, wildly entertained by them,” he told the outlet. “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.”
Kilmer himself brought plenty of entertainment to fans through the years, thanks to his iconic roles in Top Gun, Batman Forever, Heat and more. In 2022, he returned to the Top Gun universe as Iceman in Top Gun: Maverick.
“It means a lot to my dad as he’s very proud of that film. This is what he loves to do,” Mercedes told the New York Post while reflecting on her father’s “extraordinary” reunion with the Top Gun crew. “It was trippy and very special for my dad to be on set with all of his friends who made this movie when they were my age.”
Since his death in April 2025, Mercedes has shared glimpses of memories with her father through the years. In November 2025, she posted a black-and-white photo of Kilmer holding her as an infant, captioned with a simple red heart emoji.
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