Anne Heche (right) said her three-year lesbian romance with Ellen DeGeneres (left) ruined her movie career.
Heche met DeGeneres at a Vanity Fair party in 1997 and the pair soon began dating, but she admits her highly-publicized relationship with the comedienne deeply affected her career.
“My movie premiere for Volcano, I had told them (producers) that I was taking Ellen as my date and I was told if I took Ellen I would lose my Fox contract,” she tells People magazine.
“At that moment, she took my hand and said, ‘Do what they say’ and I said, ‘No thanks’. I took Ellen to the premiere and I was ushered out before the movie even ended and was told I was not allowed to go to my own after party for fear that they would get pictures of me with a woman.
“She was warning me, ‘This is going to happen’. I was in a relationship with Ellen DeGeneres for three-and-a-half years and the stigma attached to that relationship was so bad that I was fired from my multi-million dollar picture deal and I did not work in a studio picture for 10 years.”
DeGeneres and Heche split in August 2000 and Heche gave up the lesbian lifestyle.
Heche, 51, married Coleman Laffoon in September, 2001. She then moved on to a romance with actor James Tupper.
DeGeneres, 62, tied the knot with actress Portia De Rossi in 2008.
