Anne Heche Ripped By Legendary Director For Being Openly Gay
Director Ivan Reitman told Anne Heche that her sexuality may be a problem for his movie Six Days, Seven Nights.
Director Ivan Reitman asked Anne Heche to hide her sexuality while filming the 1998 film Six Days, Seven Nights. The actress, who died in a tragic car crash in 2022, detailed the conversation in her memoir, Call Me Anne. In an excerpt via People, she said the incident took place shortly after her romance with Ellen DeGeneres became public.
In the book, Anne Heche recounts how she was called to her co-star Harrison Ford’s trailer during lunch on the first week of shooting. “I was met with the sight of director Ivan Reitman and Harrison sitting on one of two white pleather sofas,” she wrote. After she hesitantly sat on the opposite couch, the director talked about tabloid reports that she and Ellen “were pregnant.”
“They showed me this as proof of why openness about my relationship was becoming a pain,” Anne Heche continued. “Why Ivan asked me, can’t I just be like Jodie Foster?”
At the time, the actress didn’t know what that meant. So he explained to Anne Heche that everybody knows it. The “it” was Foster’s sexuality – which she never talked about.
Anne Heche explained her thought process following the conversation, finding it odd that Reitman thought she could get pregnant so quickly with a woman. Odder still was that he cared so much about the perception that she was going to ruin a movie that hadn’t even been shot. Further in the memoir, the late actress detailed her reasons for being open about her relationship.
It was because she had lived in a family that was built on lies. Anne Heche said her father hid his sexuality his entire life, alluding to her claims that he was a closeted homosexual. Then years later, she met Ellen who was open and honest about who she was.
“It was the most attractive and alluring quality that I had ever seen,” the I Know What You Did Last Summer alum wrote.
She became mesmerized by Ellen’s honesty. “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,” Anne Heche wrote. Although her public relationship with DeGeneres had a negative impact on her career, the actress said she has no regrets.
Sadly, Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres broke up in 2000. A year later, the now-deceased star released her first memoir titled Call Me Crazy. Before her death, the actress had been hosting a podcast called Better Together with her friend Heather Duffy who finalized the unfinished memoir, Call Me Anne, after Heche’s untimely passing.
Speaking about Anne Heche, Duffy told People the actress never got credit for the change she created. But she takes comfort in knowing that her friend is finally free to be as big and bold as she deserves to be. Call Me Anne is set to be released on January 24. The book is filled with personal anecdotes of her rise to fame, how Harrison Ford became her mentor and her encounter with Harvey Weinstein.
Anne Heche also shares her history of childhood sexual abuse, her relationship with God, and her journey to self-love, the description says. The memoir will be available everywhere books are sold.
