Ricki Lake Is Reunited With Family Photos She Thought Had Burned in California Wildfires—After Stranger Found Them at a Flea Market

TV personality Ricki Lake has been reunited with a collection of family photos she thought she had lost forever in the California wildfires—after a stranger stumbled across them at a flea market in Pasadena.

Lake's home was destroyed in the January 2025 Palisades fires that decimated 7,000 structures across Pacific Palisades and Malibu, including those owned by the likes of Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, Paris Hilton, and Anna Faris.

After her home was reduced to rubble by the blazes, Lake, 57, assumed that she had lost almost all of her most precious possessions, including several photographs of her posing with her loved ones, including her sons.

However, that changed when her friends alerted her to the fact that a woman on social media was trying to track Lake down after stumbling across a box of her photos at the Pasadena City College Flea Market.

Artist Patty Scanlon shared some images of the family photos on Instagram along with the caption, "Anybody know how to contact Ricki Lake? I picked up some found photos at Pasadena City College Flea Market and the box seems to be full of A LOT of photos of #Rickilake @rickilake! I think she may WANT these. She may not have copies! Thank you!!!!"

The post quickly garnered a flood of attention, eventually reaching Lake herself, who commented, "I’m still in complete disbelief."

The box was filled with snaps of Lake, her ex-husband Rob Sussman, and their son Milo, now 28. The former couple, who split up in 2005, also share son Owen, 24.

While speaking to Today, Lake said, "It's nuts. I just couldn't make sense of it. I have no clue.

“I literally couldn’t even process what I was seeing. I was like, these images that I thought were gone forever were suddenly turning up, like, how can a box of my personal photos end up at a flea market? It just didn’t make sense.

"And so I reached out to the woman, Patty, right away, and I was like, ‘I can talk to you tomorrow.'"

Meanwhile Scanlon told Lake that she purchased the box for $20, adding that the seller had four more boxes of her belongings.

"I'm going to reach out and get them all," Lake said.

The two women opened up about the astonishing discovery in an Instagram Live together, during which Scanlon revealed what first drew her to the images while she was seeking out inspiration for one of her art projects.

"It was like the universe drove me to get your pictures," Scanlon said, according to the Los Angeles Times. "I opened the pictures and the first one I saw ... I thought ‘Oh, I love that woman’s face.'"

The artist said that she didn't initially realize who the woman in the photos was, but upon further investigation found a note from Lake in amongst the images that confirmed her identity.

Meanwhile Lake described the photos as "priceless," noting that she would have been eternally grateful to Scanlon for returning them to her regardless of the circumstances—but that they were made all the more poignant because of the fires.

"I had made peace," she shared. "It was such a heartache and such a painful thing to 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."

After being reunited with all of her things, Lake assured fans she would do an unboxing on the web.

"I've lost so much," Lake said, noting that she believes these photos were copies because she is positive the originals were lost in the fire.

“No one looted my property and got these pictures. Every single thing that was in my house that day was incinerated. Not even a mug survived the fire," she said.

The TV personality noted that she thinks the copies may have belonged to a family relative she isn't in touch with.

“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what made her get rid of them, why they ended up there. I don’t know the answer to that,” she said.

Lake also said that the serendipitous moment has left her believing in "magic."

“This whole situation feels like a magical occurrence. It feels like otherworldly. I am a big believer in knowing that there’s a higher power greater than myself. I’m not particularly a religious person, but I consider myself to be pretty spiritual. And in this case, yeah, I do think it’s magic," she told the outlet.

When her home burnt down on Jan. 7, 2025, Lake took to Instagram to assure fans she was safe and was staying with a friend in Ohio before sharing a heartfelt message.

"It's been so crazy these last couple weeks for everyone, especially people in L.A. area… this experience you guys… it has brought me to my knees.

"It's so weird to be like, in a place of need. I'm such an independent person. I've been taking care of my own since I'm 18 years old, you know? And I don't come from money, I don't come from any handout or nepotism, and I just like, built this, like, life for myself and my husband and my kids and my you know, and it's just so weird to have it be gone in one event.

"I wanted to come on and thank some of the people and companies that have really, like, just shown up and offered, there's so many companies that are still offering to help us, but we don't have a place that we're landing yet, so we can only do so much," she said at the time.

She noted that the loss hit her hard because it took her seven years to build her sprawling abode.

Lake is one of the several A-listers who lost their homes in the L.A. fires, alongside Miles Teller, Tyra Banks, and others.