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Anne Heche Exclusive by Meg Allen 365Gay.com TV |
ABC is touting an "exclusive" interview with Anne Heche (Thursday 10:00 p.m. Global/ABC) that "gets to the bottom of her affair with Ellen DeGeneris".
While it only gets to the "bottom" from Heche's perspective, it only leaves DeGeneres and most of the rest of us seething. It was recorded shortly before her much publicized wedding to cameraman Coley Laffoon.
The interview, done by Barbara Walters, is far from hard hitting. It's more of a sympathetic look at a very troubled woman by Walters and serves as the season premiere of 20/20 as well as hyping Heche's book due out later this week.
Heche tells Walters she was insane during her relationship with DeGeneres.
She says she spent the first 31 years of her life suffering from mental illness triggered by sexual abuse at the hands of her father.
"Those were your words: Insane for 31 years," says Walters, to which Heche, now 32, responds, "Yes."
"Were you really insane as most of think of insane?" asks Walters.
"You would have to define what most people think is insane," counters Heche, who explains that she believed she was two people. Celestia — her other personality — was from another planet and spoke a different language directly with God.
This escape to another world, she says, stemmed from being sexually abused by her father since she was a toddler. She says they were years of her life that she still can't remember clearly.
"I think it's always hard for children to talk about abuse because it is only a memory," she says. "I didn't carry around a tape recorder … I didn't chisel anything in stone … Anybody can look and say, 'Well how do you know for sure?' And that's one of the most painful things about it. You don't."
Her father, Donald Heche, was a choir director in a Baptist church who frequented gay bars at night. Heche found out about her father's double life at the age of 12, as he lay dying of AIDS.
In the interview, Heche reveals the intimate details of her romantic life and breakup with DeGeneres.
She says she only regained her sanity about a year ago, she says, after she was found wandering in Fresno, Calif., in a confused and shaken state.
"I'm all here," says Heche, who is now engaged to be married to a cameraman she met while working on a documentary about DeGeneres. "I'm here … I could not be more elated with my life."
Hech's book and the Walters interview has infuriated DeGeneres.
The comedienne has launched a bitter attack against her former lover.
DeGeneres says, "I thought Anne loved me with all her heart but now I know the truth. Anne never truly loved me I now see I was being used.
"I guess she wasn't gay. I am unsure now as to what her real motives were. I was naive. I envisioned a beautiful future. We bought two homes together and that indicates commitment - at least on my part."
DeGeneres is working on her new sitcom, The Ellen Show, set to debut later this month.