Jodie Foster received a Lifetime Achievement Award, the Cecil B. DeMille award, at the Golden Globes last night. She is a two-time Academy Award-winning actress, and has been acting since the age of 3. She is now 50, which means that she has 47 years of experience in show business.
For years, it has been rumoured that Foster is a lesbian. She did not come right out (pardon the pun) and say that she is one last night, but she definitely hinted at it. She began the personal part of her speech by saying that she is proud of who she is. ‘Proud,’ of course, is a code word for the gay lifestyle, because of the Gay Pride Parade which is marked in many big cities across North America, including Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She got a big laugh when she made the announcement that she was….single. A lot of people, no doubt, were expecting her to say outright that she was a lesbian.
She said that she had come out a thousand years ago in the Stone Age to the people she cared about, and she made a point of saying that she hadn’t bothered coming out to people who didn’t know her. This led naturally into the next part of her speech, which discussed privacy. Now, she said, apparently it is a celebrity’s responsibility to share personal details of their lives with the whole world, and not just their intimates. Foster said that she has been in the public eye since the age of 3. Because of that, she has struggled to maintain her privacy.
She was basically admitting that she is a lesbian, and refers even to her co-parent, etc.; however, the subtle point she was making (or unsubtle) was that she should not have to go into details about her personal life in a public press conference.
She hinted at the end of her speech that she was retiring, because she would not be on this stage again, or any stage, for that matter. She said she will continue to tell stories, and move people, as well as be moved herself.