Actress Jodie Foster finally came out of the closet after decades of rumors and denials.
Foster, 50, gave a long, rambling, disjointed speech publicly acknowledging her sexuality, fears, loneliness, children, ex-partner, and the Cecil B. DeMille award she received during Sunday night’s Golden Globes.
Foster gave some insight into the anxiety and apprehension that keeps other gay celebrities, such as Queen Latifah and Tyler Perry, hidden in their closeted sanctums.
“So while I’m here being all confessional, I guess I have a sudden urge to say something that I’ve never really been able to air in public,” she said. “So, a declaration that I’m a little nervous about but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now, huh Jennifer? But I’m just going to put it out there, right? Loud and proud, right? So I’m going to need your support on this.”
Foster continued:
“I am single. Yes I am, I am single. No, I’m kidding — but I mean I’m not really kidding, but I’m kind of kidding. I mean, thank you for the enthusiasm. Can I get a wolf whistle or something? [Audio is silent for seven seconds] … be a big coming-out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the Stone Age, in those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and co-workers and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now I’m told, apparently that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show.
Foster acknowledged her ex-lover of 20 years, Cydney Bernard (whom she left for a younger woman but that relationship didn’t work out). She called Bernard a “heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life, my confessor, ski buddy, consigliere.”
And she spoke tenderly to her 2 sons with Bernard (by artificial insemination):
“You see, Charlie and Kit, sometimes your mom loses it too. I can’t help but get moony, you know. This feels like the end of one era and the beginning of something else. Scary and exciting and now what? Well, I may never be up on this stage again, on any stage for that matter. Change, you gotta love it. I will continue to tell stories, to move people by being moved, the greatest job in the world. It’s just that from now on, I may be holding a different talking stick. And maybe it won’t be as sparkly, maybe it won’t open on 3,000 screens, maybe it will be so quiet and delicate that only dogs can hear it whistle. But it will be my writing on the wall.
Foster also touched on the despair and loneliness that some middle age lesbians (and gay men) experience after decades of pursuing love with others without loving ourselves.
“Jodie Foster was here,” she said, “I still am, and I want to be seen, to be understood deeply and to be not so very lonely.”
Click here to read the full transcript of Jodie Foster’s speech.
