Battles with mental illness and a blacklisting for her sexuality?
Anne Heche's sudden passing at 53 was only the final tragedy in the talented actress' life.
Anne Heche had a difficult upbringing.
Her parents, Donald and Nancy, raised her in poverty, and the family was constantly
moving from place to place.
Soon enough, the Heches were destitute and made homeless after getting evicted.
In severe debt, Donald dabbled in get rich quick schemes and constantly lied to his wife
about his supposed business deals.
When Anne was 12, the family ended up living in one room after a church friend offered accommodation.
At the time, Heche began providing for the family when she landed a theater gig, for
which she was paid $100 a week.
It was more money than her parents ever made.
Now that Heche was the main provider in the household, they were able to move into an apartment.
But the stress had taken its toll on the youngster.
In an interview with CNN, Heche discussed the hopelessness in which she was raised,
noting that she and her relatives had dreams and aspirations seemingly beyond their reach.
Heche told CNN:
"I wanted to be anything other than who I was.
And so did my family [. . .] We were poor and we wanted to be rich.
We were, you know, homeless and we pretended we had a home."
Anne Heche's father, Donald, was secretly gay, but managed to hide his sexuality from
his family until he became seriously ill.
When Heche was 13, Donald died of AIDS.
Her sister, Susan Bergman, wrote a book about her father's hidden double life, entitled,
The Secret Life of an American Family.
Speaking with the Chicago Tribune, Bergman said that although her dad was visibly ill
and deteriorating, he did not inform his loved ones that he had AIDS until he was in the
final throes of the disease.
After speaking with Donald's acquaintances following his death in 1983, Bergman discovered
that he was gay, something that her mom did not deny.
Donald himself came from an abusive family devoid of love, a pattern that was sadly repeated
when he and his wife Nancy started a family of their own.
Speaking with The Advocate, Heche claimed that her father was schizophrenic and lived
two completely different lives.
Heche told the outlet:
"One as a heterosexual man who directed the choir and had a family and one who went away
[. . .] My father was doing things that are attributed to schizophrenia - big [business]
deals, delusions of grandeur."
In her 2001 memoir, Call Me Crazy, Anne Heche alleged that her father began raping her from
a young age until shortly before his death when she was 13.
As she revealed to ABC News, she believes the abuse began when she was a toddler, but
she had repressed her trauma for years.
Speaking with The New York Times, she explained that her mom, Nancy, was reportedly oblivious to the abuse.
Accordingly, Heche suggested that Nancy herself was a victim of emotional abuse at the hands
of her father, who deliberately isolated her from reality so that he could continue allegedly
violating his daughter.
Upon learning that AIDS claimed the life of her father, Heche became terrified that she
may have caught it herself.
Her father had already allegedly given her herpes, and she had a rash and sores.
Heche told The Advocate:
"I went crazy!
I didn't talk to anybody about it; I escaped into my fantasy world."
She stated that her father being closeted had nothing to do with his alleged pedophilia.
Rather, she explained, her dad was a sexual deviant.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available.
Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline
at 1-800-656-HOPE. That's 1-800-656-4673.
Anne Heche suffered from lifelong mental illness stemming from the alleged sexual abuse she
was subjected to as a child.
Although her health condition hasn't been specified, she's believed to have a personality
disorder.
During a psychotic break in August 2000, shortly after her split from Ellen DeGeneres, Heche
knocked on a stranger's door in Fresno, California, declaring that she was from another planet,
and asked to use the shower.
She was taken to hospital when the homeowner, who soon recognized Heche from the big screen,
called the authorities.
When word got out, the actor was branded "crazy" by the tabloids at a time when mental illness
was poorly understood.
However, Heche has hit back at the stigmatization of her personality disorder, telling CNN:
"I believe that many people may think I went insane.
I do not believe I am insane.
I believe I went through a period of my life that was insane, and it lasted 31 years."
"I believed I was from that world.
I believed I was from another planet.
I think I was insane."
In order to cope with her childhood trauma, Heche created an alter ego called Celestia,
whom she said was both an extra-terrestrial and spiritual life form.
As Heche explained to The Advocate, Celestia was the reason she survived in the face of
overwhelming adversity.
Heche revealed to the outlet:
"She was the consistent love that allowed me to know that I could get to the other side
of my abuse."
"I feel like I've survived."
Following the Fresno incident, speculation grew as to whether Anne Heche was misusing drugs.
At the time, notorious tabloid the National Enquirer alleged that Heche was responsible
for Robert Downey Jr.'s relapse by supplying him with illicit substances, claims that she
vehemently denied.
Heche has been open about her history of drug and alcohol use, which she used as a means
to block out her pain.
The actress told ABC News,
"I drank.
I smoked.
I did drugs.
I had sex with people.
I did anything I could to get the shame out of my life."
Heche attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and fell for a man who was also recovering
from alcohol misuse, a relationship that she conceded was not healthy for her.
In 2019, Heche's ex, James Tupper, accused her of misusing drugs.
In court documents obtained by Radar following the couple's acrimonious split, Tupper attributed
his ex's allegations of emotional abuse to her drug issues, claiming,
"I truly do not understand this drama and hope it isn't linked to extended drug use."
When Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres started dating in 1997, they were one of the first
same-sex Hollywood couples to go public.
Their romance, however, was met with controversy.
Sadly, Heche was subjected to homophobia from her mother, Nancy, who denounced her daughter's
relationship with DeGeneres, telling CBN,
"Like a betrayal of an unspoken vow: We will never have anything to do with homosexuals."
Heche also faced reported homophobic abuse from the media, with some outlets inexplicably
accusing her of dating DeGeneres as a publicity stunt.
Hitting back against the claims, Heche explained that she fell deeply in love with DeGeneres,
whom she saw as a refuge from the violence, trauma, and lies that blighted her childhood.
Heche told The New York Times:
"The impact that has on a child who grew up with such shame about who she was, who her
father was, the disease he died of, the hatred my mother had for anything gay.
And I got to participate in a loving truthful celebration of the way I thought the world should be.""
As Heche explained to CNN, the media was preoccupied with her being in a relationship with a woman,
whereas she was elated to have found someone who was seemingly the antithesis of the toxic
people she grew up around.
Heche told the news outlet:
"It was not, 'oh, dear, a woman.'
It's 'Oh, my God, there's a human being who is telling the truth.'"
When she was in her 20s, Anne Heche dated well-known actor Steve Martin, who was decades older.
The breakup was painful for Heche, who was reeling from childhood trauma.
In an interview with ABC News, Heche reflected,
"I wanted the love of an older man.
I wanted comfort."
Likewise, Heche described her 2000 split from Ellen DeGeneres as "heart-breaking and miserable."
As she told CNN,
"I had withered myself into nothing.
I was 90 pounds [. . .] I was standing outside, fell out of my face, broke my nose and couldn't
remember my name, but could remember that I had a girlfriend named Ellen DeGeneres.
I was lost."
She said that her childhood trauma had a detrimental effect on the relationship, with her bottling
her turmoil inside for years.
"In a relationship, and I think many of us have them, you come to a fork in the road.
What do you want?
And what do I want?"
Thereafter, Heche had difficult relationships with husband Coleman Laffoon, with whom she
had a toxic divorce, and boyfriend James Tupper, who apparently locked Heche out of her home
and attempted to sell it without her consent following their breakup.
Anne Heche claimed she was blacklisted from Hollywood due to her sexuality.
Appearing on The Real Daytime, she said that she was "canceled" for being in a relationship
with Ellen DeGeneres.
"I got kicked out of my own movie premiere because they didn't want to get pictures of
me with a woman."
Heche told Page Six:
"I didn't do a studio picture for 10 years.
I was fired from a $10 million picture deal and did not see the light of day in a studio picture."
After going public with DeGeneres, studio execs apparently wanted to fire Heche from
what would become one of her most famous roles: desert island romcom Six Days, Seven Nights.
"I had told them I was taking Ellen as my date and I was told if I took Ellen I would
lose my Fox contract."
However, thanks to co-star Harrison Ford, who called Heche saying that her personal
life was of no interest to him, she secured the flick.
Her career decline was also compounded by stigma surrounding her history of mental illness.
Although she appeared on TV shows like Men in Trees and Hung, Heche was habitually reduced
to minor roles.
In 2010, The Guardian attributed this decline to Hollywood's unease with Heche's history
of mental illness.
On August 5, 2022, Anne Heche was involved in two car accidents.
First, she was spotted driving erratically before crashing into a garage.
After speeding from the scene, she crashed into a person's home, causing a huge fire.
Trapped in her car for over an hour as firefighters battled the blaze, Heche was eventually rescued
and taken to the hospital.
Four days later, Heche's rep confirmed that, contrary to initial claims that the actor
was stable and likely to make it, she was in a coma and hadn't regained consciousness
since the day of the accident.
However, on August 12, it was reported that Heche had passed away from the injuries sustained
in the car crash.
Two days later, on August 14, the actor's rep, Holly Baird, confirmed that Heche had
died after being taken off life support.
Anne Heche was 53.
If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text
Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI
(6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.