Before Anne Heche died, the 53-year-old actress was ready to tell the world the whole story of the Hollywood hate she endured during her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres in the late 1990s.
Heche, who passed away in Los Angeles on Aug. 11 following a tragic car crash, detailed the discriminatory backlash she faced as half of Tinseltown’s first publicly gay couple in her forthcoming memoir “Call Me Anne,” the Associated Press reported.
In the book, to be released in January by independent publisher Start, Heche grapples with the uncertainty of how to label her sexuality at the time, when she felt she didn’t identify as a lesbian or a straight woman.
“I was labeled ‘outrageous’ because I fell in love with a woman. I had never been with a woman before I dated Ellen,” Heche wrote in the memoir.
The “Donnie Brasco” actress wrote about being blacklisted because of her relationship with DeGeneres, who went on to make history as the first gay sitcom host.
Heche describes feeling like she was being shamed by the world.
“I did not, personally, identify as a lesbian. I simply fell in love! It was, to be clear, as odd to me as anyone else. There were no words to describe how I felt,” Heche wrote, describing how she didn’t know how to label her sexuality at the time, and didn’t think it was fair for the world to either.
“Gay didn’t feel right, and neither did straight. Alien might be the best fit, I sometimes thought. What, why, and how I fell in love with a person instead of their gender, I would have loved to have answered if anyone had asked, but as I said earlier, no one ever did. I am happy that I was able to tell you in this book — once and for all,” the former actress wrote in the forthcoming book.
Before her death, Heche had offered up hints about her latest project on a podcast, dishing that “some of the truths” about her relationship with DeGeneres would be mentioned.
“Call Me Anne” follows Heche’s 2001 memoir “Call Me Crazy,” which sparked renewed interest after her death as a “collectible” on Amazon with a price tag of nearly $750.
Heche’s book also details her experience with having Harrison Ford as a mentor and shares stories about Alec Baldwin, Oliver Stone and Ivan Reitman, including others.
In the wake of her passing, law enforcement sources told TMZ that Heche was under the influence of cocaine when she slammed her car into a home that set a fire and left her in a coma. She leaves behind two sons.
Stars mourned the late mother of two, including ex-girlfriend DeGeneres taking to social media to express her emotional condolences.
“This is a sad day,” she wrote. “I’m sending Anne’s children, family and friends all my love,” she wrote on Twitter.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.