Jodie Foster comes out as ‘loud and proud’ but private lesbian

Hollywood star Jodie Foster left plenty in the entertainment world and elsewhere confused yesterday while many others were inspired after delivering a cryptic and rambling speech at the Golden Globe Awards where she publicly hinted for the first time she was a “loud and proud” lesbian.

The intensely private actress and director took to the stage during the 70th Golden Globes after being announced as this year’s winner of Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award.

The 50-year-old, who has previously won Oscars for her roles in The Silence of the Lambs and The Accused, began her speech by warning that she had a big announcement to make that would make her publicist nervous.

“I’m just going to put it out there, loud and proud ... I am, uh, single,” she told the crowd.

“I hope you’re not disappointed that there won't be a big coming-out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the Stone Age, in those very quaint days when perhaps a young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and coworkers and then gradually, proudly, to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met.

“But now apparently I’m told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show.”

Foster then touched on why she valued her privacy so greatly before paying tribute to her former partner, production manager Cydney Bernard, with whom she has two sons.

“If you had been a public figure from the time you were a toddler, if you had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe then you too might value privacy above all else,” she said.

“There is no way I could ever stand here without acknowledging one of the deepest loves of my life: my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life, my confessor, ski buddy, consigliere, most beloved BFF of 20 years, Cydney Bernard. Thank you, Cyd.”

Backstage, Foster denied she was quitting acting for good and declined to delve further into the reasons for opening up on her private life.

“The speech kind of speaks for itself ... It’s a big moment. I wanted to say what’s most in my heart,” she said.

Foster’s speech was well received by those at the ceremony inside the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.

After accepting awards for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical as well as Best Television Series (Comedy or Musical), Lena Dunham, the creator and star of HBO’s comedy hit Girls, said Foster’s speech was “mind-blowingly beautiful” and added she won’t be getting married until equal marriage laws existed across the US.

“I’m not engaged. I don’t want to get married until all gay people can get married,” Dunham told reporters backstage.

Meanwhile, Hotel Rwanda star Don Cheadle beat Alec Baldwin and Louis CK to take out the Golden Globe for best actor in a TV Comedy Series for his role on Showtime’s House of Lies, in which he plays a fast-living management consultant with a genderqueer son.

The telecast ended with co-hosts Amy Poehler and Tina Fey joking that they were “going home with Jodie Foster!”