Fridae

In accepting the Cecil B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement at the 70th Annual Golden Globes on Sunday, actress Jodie Foster addressed her sexuality for the first time directly. Foster had refered to her ex-partner and and co-parent Cydney Bernard as "my beautiful Cydney" without stating the nature of their relationship while accepting an award at the Women in Entertainment Power 100 breakfast in 2007.

Jodie Foster

At the ceremony on Sunday night, the 50-year old actress and director who is known for being fiercely private about her personal life, said that she has in fact been out as a gay person 'about a thousand years ago, back in the stone age' although she has not announced it at a press conference.

She began her long and wide-ranging speech by thanking film executives, producers and co-stars over her 47-year career: “While I’m here being all confessional, I just have the sudden urge to say something I’ve never been able to say in public. A declaration that I’m a little nervous about. Not quite as nervous as my publicist, huh, Jennifer? But uh, you know, I’m just going to put it out there. Loud and proud. I’m going to need your support. I am – single,” she began. “I’m kidding.”

She then changed her tone saying that she first came out to the people closest to her and eventually to everyone she has met.

“Seriously, I hope that 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 a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends, and family, co-workers, 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.”

While some reporters have termed her speech vague for not spelling out her sexuality, Foster unequivocally defended her right to privacy: “But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler. If you had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you too might value privacy above all else. Privacy. Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was. I have given everything up there from the time that I was three years old—that’s reality show enough, don’t you think?”

Foster starred in commercials at the age of three and at 13, she had her first significant role in the 1976 film The Taxi for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1989 for her role in The Accused and another in 1991 for The Silence of the Lambs.

She also acknowledged and thanked her partner Cydney with whom she has two sons. “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, consigliore, most beloved BFF for 20 years, Cydney Bernard. Thank you, Cyd. I am so proud of our modern family, our amazing sons Charlie and Kit, who are my reason to breathe and to evolve, my blood and soul. And boys, in case you didn’t know it, this song, like all of this, this song is for you.”

She went on to address her 84-year-old mother, who reportedly suffers from dementia, directly.

“This brings me to my greatest influence in my life, my amazing mother Evelyn. Mom, I know you’re inside those blue eyes somewhere and that there are so many things that you won’t understand tonight, but this is the only important one to take in: I love you, I love you, I love you. And I hope that if I say this three times, it will magically and perfectly enter into your soul, fill you with grace and the joy of knowing that you did good in this life. You’re a great mom.” 

Backstage, the actress clarified that she is not retiring from show business although she seemed to have implied that in her speech.

Read her speech in full here.