During a recent podcast, actress Anne
Heche said that 20th Century Fox fired her over her
romantic relationship with Ellen DeGeneres.
Heche and DeGeneres were in a much
publicized relationship from 1997 to 2000. In 2001, Heche married
Coleman “Coley” Laffoon, a cameramen whom she met on DeGeneres'
stand-up comedy tour. A ten year relationship with James Tupper
followed after she divorced Laffoon.
Appearing on the
Irish Goodbye podcast, Heche explained that she met DeGeneres in
the same week that DeGeneres' character on Ellen came out and
Heche's film Volcano premiered. (DeGeneres also publicly came
out on the cover of Time magazine two weeks before her
television character came out.)
“Ellen and I met on a Sunday night at
the Vanity Fair party,” said Heche. “Tuesday was her coming out
episode of the Ellen show. Wednesday was the press junket for
Volcano. Thursday was the opening of Volcano.”
“I took Ellen. We were told that my
contract for Fox would be [extinguished] and I would be fired. And
that the movie that I had just met Harrison Ford on wouldn’t hire
me. And we went to the premiere – these are the stories that I know
people don’t know.”
“We went to the premiere, we were
tapped on the shoulder, put into her limo in the third act and told
that we couldn’t have pictures of us taken at the press junket –
and both she and I were fired that week.”
Heche's career took a significant
downturn after she began dating DeGeneres.
“And then after that, I never did a
studio picture 10 years,” Heche said.
Heche, 49, currently stars in the NBC
military drama The Brave.