Anne Heche did good and bad to the LGBTQIA+ community in equal proportion

Anne Heche died this Friday (12), at the age of 53. The news of her death is very sad. She is survived by two children, one aged 20 and the other aged 13, and had a long career ahead of her. A very talented actress, she never had a role where she could really show what she came for. Her big chance, I imagine, was yet to come.

Although tragic, her death in an accident that involved only one car – hers – and an inert obstacle – a house -, is not surprising. She wasn’t the most balanced of people. From the outside, the impression is that she lived life at high speed and that she wasn’t afraid to throw herself against the wall. At least that’s how it was when she met Ellen DeGeneres.

For those who didn’t follow, here’s a sequence in fast forward: Anne and Ellen met in 1997 at a Vanity Fair post-Oscars party. Up until that point, Anne had been heterosexual; Ellen was on the cusp of becoming the most famous and influential lesbian in showbiz. The connection between the two was immediate, as both said at the time. Ellen was 39 years old; Anne was 28.

Soon after, DeGeneres graced a historic cover of TIME magazine, in which he declared to the world: “Yep, I’m Gay”. Today that wouldn’t have stirred much movement, but at that time, as it turned out, the world was not prepared to see a comedian, under contract with Disney Studios, openly declaring her homosexuality.

At the same time, Anne Heche was releasing the movie “Volcano”. She and her girlfriend walked the red carpet together at the film’s premiere, a move considered risky. All hazard alerts have been confirmed. Ellen was fired from the show “Ellen” after the fifth season (1994-1998). Anne Heche declared that she was canceled from Hollywood and, after releasing “Six Days, Seven Nights”, in which she starred opposite Harrison Ford, she began to receive invitations only to independent films.

That’s when Ellen decided to go back to the beginning of her career and crossed the United States doing a stand-up tour. Anne Heche traveled along, collecting material for a documentary about the trip. They hired a cameraman, Coley Lafoon. Anne fell in love with him, the documentary went unnoticed, Ellen watched ships. Lafoon is the father of Anne’s first child, Homer. The second, Atlas, is the son of actor Jamer Tupper.

After the end of the relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, Anne Heche was involved in a very strange event. She broke into the house of strangers without saying a thing, and was taken to the hospital. Her “explanation” was that she had heard voices saying that she should go in search of a spaceship, and that in order to get on that spaceship she would have to take ecstasy.

In 2001 Anne released her autobiography, Call me Crazy. There she tells about her complicated childhood, the sexual abuse she suffered from her own father, her trajectory in showbiz and her romance with Ellen. This chapter was definitely a watershed in her life. Anne began to have a popularity that she had not yet achieved in her career. Ellen looked happier than ever.

That lesbian couple so public did harm and good for the LGBT community in equal proportion. The good they did was to parade their love with pride, defy convention, live their feelings without measuring the consequences. But after Anne cheated on and abandoned Ellen in the midst of a common professional project, she did her a disservice.

Was all that love just opportunism? Can a lesbian love not compete with the love between a man and a woman? Can a beautiful, feminine lesbian change her mind as soon as a man comes along that interests her? And an old question: is it possible to be bisexual?

Anne’s death in this as-yet-unclear accident feels like a posthumous chapter in Call Me Crazy. On August 5, Anne drove her Mini Cooper into a house in the Mar Vista area of ​​Los Angeles. The collision sparked a fire that took an hour to extinguish, according to reports. She was conscious when she was rescued, but fell into a coma in the hospital and never regained consciousness.

Today he was declared brain dead. Ellen tweeted a heartfelt message: “This is a sad day. I send all my love to Anne’s children, her family and her friends.”