Anne Heche's Upcoming Memoir Reveals How Her Ellen DeGeneres Relationship Conflicted With Her Big-Budget Movie Success

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Anne Heche is getting in the last word about her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres in her posthumous memoir, Call Me Anne, out Jan. 24. The late actress, who died in August at the age of 53, is candid about how her same-sex romance with the comedian altered the trajectory of her high-powered Hollywood career forever.

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Heche discussed working on her “first starring role in a big-budget movie, Six Days, Seven Nights,” in an excerpt obtained by People. She found herself called into an impromptu meeting with director Ivan Reitman and co-star Harrison Ford just after the film began production. “They had seen the evening news,” Heche wrote in her memoir. “Rumors were reported that Ellen and I were pregnant. Our ‘pregnancy’ was everywhere. They showed me this as proof of why this openness about my relationship was becoming a pain in the ass for them.“

She then alleged that Reitman made a really horrific suggestion that demonstrates how little support the LGBTQ+ community received in that era. “Why, Ivan asked me, can’t I just be like Jodie Foster? (I didn’t know what that meant. ‘Everybody knows it,’ he explained, ‘it’ being her sexuality. ‘She just doesn’t talk about it.’),” the excerpt read.

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Heche called the moment “devastating” because “no one bothered” to ask her about her relationship and how much it meant to her. Instead, everyone was worried about the financial stake of the film. DeGeneres was out about her sexuality by then, but the consequences for Heche were far-reaching. “I was in love with a person who had chosen to leverage her very public persona in support of the cause she was standing up for, which was LGBTQ+ rights for everybody on the planet who wanted them,” Heche wrote. “Love became my destiny.” The couple broke up in 2000 after three years of dating, but for Heche, the career damage was done and everlasting.

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