Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche. (HECTOR MATA/AFP via Getty)
Anne Heche has said her ex-girlfriend Ellen DeGeneres didn’t want her to “dress sexy” when they attended the Golden Globes together in 1998.
The Another World actress dated DeGeneres between 1997 and 2000, and she’s finally opening up about what her time with the lesbian icon was like.
In a TikTok video posted on Wednesday (28 April), Heche reviewed some of her past red carpet looks – including the dress she wore to the 1998 Golden Globes.
Showing a photo of herself wearing a flowing navy dress, while DeGeneres wore a navy matching navy suit, Heche said: “Why do I look like a hippie? It’s because Ellen didn’t want me to dress sexy.”
Heche went on to give the look a zero out of 10 and gave it a literal thumbs down, adding: “Bye, no.”
Heche – who went on to marry Canadian actor James Tupper – claimed in 2018 that 20th Century Fox terminated her contract after she started dating DeGeneres in the late ’90s.
At that time, DeGeneres was considered a controversial figure in the entertainment industry after she came out publicly as gay in 1997.
Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres were sent home from a press junket when they started dating
Speaking on the Irish Goodbye podcast in 2018, Heche said she met DeGeneres the same week that the then-sitcom star came out. Heche was in the middle of promoting her film Volcano.
“Ellen and I met on a Sunday night at the Vanity Fair party,” Heche said.
“Tuesday was her coming out episode of the Ellen show. Wednesday was the press junket for Volcano. Thursday was the opening of Volcano.”
Heche took DeGeneres to the opening of the film, a decision which proved controversial among film executives. She was told that she would be fired and dropped by the studio if she went ahead with her plans.
“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.”