And as a child, we have such a wonderful thing as children, that we can just make the best of everything, and say, Well, this must be what everybody else is experiencing, and I've got to make the best of it. You don't know that it's not good until you witness something that it seems better.
Are people angry with me? Sure, anything you do in your life, people are going to be angry at you.
Are we changing the idea of what beauty is? Let's hope so. I'm not the typical Hollywood beauty. Let's hope we're looking at the insides of people a little more.
As a straight woman that I was before I met Ellen, I had so many gay friends, but they never told me. You must tell your straight friends, because then we can help you.
Before, I just spewed whatever it was I thought about everything. I tend to be more contemplative now.
Celestia, as I was told, is the reincarnation of God, here.
Every single choice I made in every relationship was because I was not ready to be out about who I was.
For anyone who ever thought that Ellen and I broke it off because of sexuality, you couldn't be more mistaken.
For anyone who thought my mother's prayers had anything to do with me marrying a man, forget it.
For me to stay healthy in a relationship, the individuals have to nurture themselves.
Fresno was the culmination of a journey. Of a world that I thought I needed to escape to in order to find love.
Guys talk differently than women, and I'm able to communicate with them. I play poker when I'm not working, so I'm often at a table full of men.
He never admitted anything, even on his deathbed. He was a deluded liar. If it weren't for my father, I don't think I would be so open. So that's a huge blessing.
Help the rest of the straight community understand you. Help spread the word that everybody should be accepted as equal. To come out, you have to embrace yourself.
Here's the truth. Ready? I knew I would be with Ellen for the rest of my life. People have a hard time believing it, but it's true.
I also feel the gay community might say, Oh, she got away. But we don't own each other.
I always thought you had to leave the world to get love, and I was being shown that you could stay in the world and have love.
I believe I went through a divorce. My relationship with Ellen is no less significant as a marriage than my relationship to Coley.
I did not grow up on TV, so I don't have a lot of things to reference.
I didn't have any memory until I was 18 years old.
I do not believe that I fell in love with a woman because I was abused.
I don't belong to the straights now - they didn't get me back.
I had done a movie called Stripping for Jesus, which I had stripped my bank accounts to make. It was a movie about my abuse.
I had no idea what to do. I was existing as two people.
I had watched a man not be who he wanted to be my whole life, and here I was seeing people having a good time.
I have been looking forward to a reintroduction since I broke up with Ellen, to be able to talk to people.
I have been very clear to everybody that just because I'm getting married does not mean I call myself a straight.
I have done drugs in my life. I'm not a consistent drug user, and I never was with ecstasy, either.
I knew that I had to work very hard to create a path for myself that might lead me to a place where I would be in the situation that Candice Bergen was.
I named my book Call Me Crazy. I understand that people are going to have opinions about me. Does it bother me? No. I know who I am.
I never said that I came out when I was in love with Ellen; I always said I went in. I went deeper into my own closet.
I put myself on the line with my truth and my sexuality. That is my choice. My choice.
I searched so hard for a part that was so complex.
I spend time talking with directors before I agree to work with them.
I think sometimes people don't really acknowledge what they're best at in a marriage.
I think what triggered the pain of my breakup with Ellen was a bottoming out of, There's no love here, I'm going to go get love.
I thought Celestia was from another planet called the Fourth Dimension. I escaped to the Fourth Dimension.
I told my mother at about the seventh year of therapy that I had been abused sexually by my father, and she hung up the phone on me.
I took that as a message that I wasn't supposed to be a pilot. I much prefer my job. So it all worked out.
I was a bit of a big mouth my whole life. I'm a person who expresses themselves with a lot of openness.
I was literally thrown to the ground in New York City. I heard the voice of God.
I was raised to pretend.
I was trying to save our relationship with having a baby, as many heterosexual couples do.
I was very afraid of what people would think of me, very afraid.
I'm always honest, whether I'm in the limelight or not.
I'm finished with this conversation. This is ridiculous. You have got to be kidding me, after everything I have given you, you are now asking me about my husband's sexuality?
I'm hearing God talk to me, saying, You are basically from Heaven.
I'm one of those people who was taught not to ruffle any feathers. Of course, I have no problem ruffling feathers.
I'm very grateful for the platform that I've had in my life to speak out about the things I care about.
I've always kind of gone with my heart.
If we look back, he was a big queen who wanted to be onstage. If it wasn't for my father, I never would have started acting.
It gets really tricky giving advice. The older I get, the less advice I give.
It was Ellen's and my business. I still believe it is. It was a time of discovering whether or not she and I were right for each other.
It's amazing to me that I'm now working on a Warner Brothers show with those people who first hired me and gave me the kind of dream of a goal that might work for my life.
It's important to talk about loving yourself and looking at your tragedies and the stuff that makes you grow.
It's my job, to create a fantasy.
It's so silly that somebody says, Did you miss a penis? I did not want for other women or other men.
Murphy Brown was a woman who was powerful and complex and who had a clear voice and helped so many women understand who they are and their place in the world.
My activism now would be more about, Go in there with a therapist or a friend; look inside and say, Where is the shame? What does it come from? I need to heal it.
My family was raised to believe there is a certain way to live. They've seen me my whole life taking steps I wasn't supposed to take.
My father was a schizophrenic. He lived two complete lives, one as a heterosexual man who directed the choir and had a family and one who went away.
My husband was a nanny for a while and a camp counselor. He wanted to be the dad that stayed at home.
Part of living a double life like my father did is you never can quite settle down and make any money.
The beauty of Ellen was golden to me. It had nothing to do with her financial statements. I've always supported myself; I've worked my ass off.
The decisions that Ellen made on her show were between her and her producers. I supported her decisions. I was there to hug her when she got home.
The first week we were together, she tried to break up with me. She said, I think you're crazy. Here I was, in love with a woman who was telling me I'm out of my mind.
The most interesting thing is that I went to a therapist for years. It's amazing what you can hide.
The movie-star idea has switched from what's important. Watch us change form. That's what I want to take acting back to.
They called it a psychotic break. I knew I was sane. But I needed to go to a psychiatrist and a doctor and make my friends feel safe that I was sane.
To have gone through so much work to heal myself and have my mother not acknowledge in any way that she was sorry for what had happened to me, broke my heart.
We do not fall in love with the package of the person, we fall in love with the inside of a person.
We wanted to have a baby. I traveled all over and we wanted to able to be together as a family. I didn't want to be a mom who was on the set with nannies all the time.
What could I do? When I was Celestia I spoke a different language, that God and I spoke together.
When I was 11, we really started hurting. We were always really poor, but it turned out the kids had to start getting jobs.
When I was with Ellen, I was telling people, If you come out, it's gonna be better for you. But I honestly don't know that.
When someone says they're nervous, I want to say, are you kidding? Don't I change form for you?
When you are coming out, you say it's for you. But when everybody says it's not OK, it becomes about that rather than about you. It disappointed me.
You name it, I could do it, I could see into the future, I could heal people.
I put a very high premium on honesty. What I learned from [my father's] death is that if you don't accept your sexuality, it will kill you." -- Cosmopolitan magazine, May 199
Surname is pronounced "Haytch".
Partner of Ellen DeGeneres. [1997 - 2000]
Had a 2 year relationship with Steve Martin.
Chosen by People Magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. [1998]
One of four children, she has a brother and two sisters.
Her father Don, a choir director, died at 45 of AIDS in 1983.
Her sister Susan Bergman has written a book about their family and their father called "Anonymity" (1998).
Went to Ocean City High School, Ocean City, New Jersey. Graduated from the Francis W. Parker School, Chicago, Illinois.
Announced that she intended to marry Ellen DeGeneres if Vermont carries through its plans to legalize gay marriages. In August of 2000, after three and half years together, she split from partner Ellen DeGeneres. [1999]
Before "coming out", she dated her former "Another World" (1964) co-stars Richard Burgi and David Forsyth.
Announced that she is engaged to her boyfriend, cameraman Coleman 'Coley' Laffoon. [30 May 2001]
During an interview with Barbara Walters, Heche stated that she has an alter ego named "Celestia". [5 September 2001]
2 March 2002: 7 pound boy, Homer Heche Laffoon, born in Los Angeles. The baby is the first child for Heche and her husband, cameraman Coleman 'Coley' Laffoon.
4 September 2001: Autobiography "Call Me Crazy" released. Heche wrote it in just six weeks.
Heche's family moved 11 times before she was 12.
Was the basis for the Heather Graham character in Bowfinger (1999).
Was nominated for Broadway's 2004 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for a revival of "Twentieth Century."
Graduated from the same Chicago prep school Daryl Hannah attended.
Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham wrote the song "Come" about her, taking shots at her lesbianism and delusions.
Her Christian mother Nancy claims to have cured her lesbianism by praying for her.
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