ā€˜The First Time I Ever Had My Heart Brokenā€™

ā€œThere is something that you learn when you have a broken heart. Not that I didnā€™t cherish love before but I really treasure it now, I really understand how hard it is to find. I think being the person I am now, if I met her tomorrow I probably wouldnā€™t be with her. But I was a different person then, and Iā€™ve learned a whole lot.ā€--Ellen DeGeneres, talking about actress Anne Heche, with whom she had a nearly four-year relationship.

It is a gossip story newly fueled: Anne Heche, selling her autobiography, ā€œCall Me Crazy,ā€ has in recent weeks been making the rounds of the talk shows and discussing Ellen DeGeneres.

Heche and DeGeneres met at a Vanity Fair Oscar party in 1997; as a couple, they became an important--and controversial--symbol of gay Hollywood.

The relationship broke off a year ago. Celebrities and their publicists enter into prickly contracts with the public; they want us to swallow whole their happiness, then avert our eyes when suddenly ā€œprivateā€ matters turn sour. Interviewed by The Times in late July, DeGeneres discussed her struggle with this latest public turn in her private life.

Question: After you came out, did you want to be the cause celebre for gay Hollywood?

Answer: You know, I wasnā€™t that outspoken. I was going to make this statement [of coming out], but thatā€™s all I was going to do. I didnā€™t know I was going to be walking down the red carpet holding somebodyā€™s hand. I mean, to me, that all was scary. And if I would have hooked up with someone who was gay, they wouldnā€™t have forced--thatā€™s a bad word, ā€œforcedā€--they wouldnā€™t have encouraged me to do that.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Because they would know ... thereā€™s no need to have our arms around each other.... I think sheā€™s a very fearless person so there was definitely, um, I think ... Iā€™m trying not to talk about her because itā€™s really not about her. Because I think that what the people were responding to ... it was this ... it was this basic posturing.

Q: So it was Anne pushing the image of you two on the public.

A: ... I didnā€™t want to hold hands. I had never done that in public. And yet there was this attitude of, you know, ā€œYouā€™re going to be on the cover of Time magazine and say youā€™re gay but youā€™re not going to hold hands? You deserve to hold hands as much as Tom and Nicole. Or Tom and Rita.ā€ So I have to take responsibility for participating in [that].

Q: Do you recognize that people are more interested in this aspect of your life than your work?

A: All I can say to that is, I donā€™t want to be a part of a soap opera anymore. Thatā€™s the key word--a soap opera is not real. I was in something that I thought was real.

Q: True. The image you two presented now seems like a fraud. How do you deal with that?

A: She walked out the door and I havenā€™t spoken to her since, I donā€™t have the answers. I would love to have them myself. I would ask all of the questions that everyone else wants to ask.... Iā€™m left with everybody else wondering what happened. I donā€™t know. I really donā€™t.... I feel betrayed. I have no idea what the book is. I have no idea. And I know him [Hecheā€™s husband, Coleman Laffoon]. He was on my tour with me, he was like my brother.

... What I donā€™t mind saying is, it was the first time I ever had my heart broken. Iā€™d always been the one to leave relationships, and I had been in long-term relationships, and it was the one time I really believed this is forever. Iā€™m going to be with this person forever, and I felt safe and I felt we shared so much together, and it was the first time Iā€™ve had my heart broken, and it was in a big way. Because there is no closure. Iā€™ve had a girlfriend who was killed in a car accident. I know what itā€™s like to lose someone. and thatā€™s a horrible feeling, [but] itā€™s almost worse to lose someone and know theyā€™re still alive out there, and I donā€™t understand. So it was a big heartbreak.

... Iā€™d like to believe that she loved me, and that Iā€™m not that stupid that I would be completely fooled. But I really will never know. And it doesnā€™t matter. I know that I was happy for a long time, and she obviously changed her mind. I just wish I had been alerted in a different way. It could have ended differently.ā€