The late Anne Heche said last year that she had “warned” Portia de Rossi not to have a romantic relationship with her ex-girlfriend Ellen DeGeneres.
In a June 2021 edition of her podcast Better together With Heather Duffy, Heche – who died earlier this month at age 53 from injuries sustained in a car accident – said she advised de Rossi, 49, not to pursue a relationship with DeGeneres, 64.
Heche, who was in a relationship with DeGeneres from 1997 to 2000, knew de Rossi when they both appeared on the Fox series Ally McBeal. She noted that de Rossi was a guest at her 2001 wedding to her ex-husband Coleman Laffoon.
Details: The late Anne Heche said on her podcast Better Together with Heather Duffy last year that she had “warned” Portia de Rossi, 49, not to have a romantic relationship with her ex-girlfriend Ellen DeGeneres, 64
On the podcast, Heche said that “Portia even asked me about Ellen” and told her, “I’m going after Ellen.”
Heche said she told the Horsham, Australian-born actress that she wouldn’t get any exposure from the relationship at a time when same-sex couples were few and far between in show business.
Heche said to de Rossi, “You won’t be the sign, girl, because guess what, that sign has already been taken; and besides, it wasn’t a great place. But yours doesn’t get any easier. And I’m telling you now, red flag, red flag, red flag!’
Heche added: “I realized Ellen was driving a Porsche… and then she married one. All she did was drive Porsche and she collected them and I thought it was stupid because they were so noisy.’
DeGeneres and de Rossi were photographed at the 2021 People’s Choice Awards, held at Barker Hangar on December 7, 2021 in Santa Monica, California
Heche said she told de Rossi she wouldn’t get any publicity from the relationship at a time when there were few same-sex couples in show business.
Last October, Heche told: Page six that the relationship with DeGeneres negatively impacted her career, as she “hadn’t taken a studio photo for ten years” in the wake of the romance, which became public after they emerged as a couple at the premiere of her film Volcano in 1997 .
“I was fired on a $10 million photo deal and didn’t see the light of day in a studio shot,” Heche said, adding that the “repercussions that befell her” also helped create “some of the change” in direction of inclusion of the LGBTQ community.
DeGeneres and de Rossi celebrated the 14th anniversary of their marriage earlier this week. DeGeneres took to Instagram and said, “It’s good to be loved. It is profound to be understood. I love you @portiaderossi. Happy 14!’
On Wednesday, officials with the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner ruled in a report that Heche’s death was an accident and the result of “inhalation and thermal injuries” she sustained in a car accident on Aug. 5 at a home in Mar Vista, California.
Heche told Rossi she was dating DeGeneres: “Red flag, red flag, red flag!”
Heche was in a relationship with DeGeneres from 1997 to 2000. They were caught at the 1998 Golden Globe Awards
Heche suffered a “sternal fracture due to blunt force trauma” in the crash, according to the report, which listed her date of death as Aug. 11.
Heche was “peacefully removed from the ventilator on Sunday,” her representative Holly Baird said.
The actress is survived by son Homer, 20, from her former marriage to Laffoon, 48, and son Atlas, 13, with ex-partner James Tupper, 57.
Los Angeles Police Department authorities sank a probe into the crash in the wake of her death, as investigators said narcotics were found in a blood sample taken.
Heche had won a Daytime Emmy Award for her work on the soap opera A Different World, and went on to appear in a number of high profile late 90s films, including Donnie Brasco, Wag the Dog, Six Days Seven Nights and Psycho.