Anne Heche (Actor)

"I love working with first-time directors. They're so passionate, and usually have had to fight so hard that by the time it's actually filming it's all about joy." - Heche quoted in the UCLA Bruin magazine, June 21, 1996

"I put a very high premium on honesty. What I learned from [my father's] death is that if you don't accept your sexuality, it will kill you. Trust is love. Period." - Heche to Cosmopolitan magazine, May 1997

"I was not gay before I met Ellen [DeGeneres]. It wasn't immediately a sexual attraction." - Heche quoted on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" (ABC) which aired on April 30, 1997

"Soaps are the most under-rated medium. You can mess up and they Still give you forty more pages the next day." - Heche quoted in Harper's Bazaar magazine, March 1996

"The day I arrived [on the set of 'Another World'] the producer said, 'oh, by the way, you're playing twins, and one of them is a real sexpot. In your first scene you'll be naked in a bathtub and you've just lost a million dollars." - Heche quoted in USA Today, Feb. 23, 1996

After the cancellation of Heche’s series, “Men in Trees” as of May 4, 2008, the actress claimed she was unable to pay child support. The actress was granted a reprieve in her monthly payments of $14,978 to her ex-husband Coley Laffoon for their six-year-old son Homer. However Heche has been ordered by a judge to provide up-to-date income and expense information for the case - as she claims she also can no longer afford to pay Homer's school fees, the mortgage on her house in Canada where “Men In Trees” was filmed, the rent on her California home, and car expenses.

Heche reached a settlement on June 6, 2008 in her divorce from Coley Laffoon, agreeing to pay her ex-husband a $275,000 lump sum and $3,700 per month in child support for their 6-year-old son. Under the settlement, Heche, 38, also will pay 75 percent of son Homer's private school tuition and half of "agreed-upon extracurricular activities" for the boy.

Heche spoke in out in her autobiography, Call Me Crazy (2001), that she was mentally ill for the first 31 years of her life after being sexually abused by her father. She claimed that her father molested her during her childhood, giving her herpes. Her father later disclosed his homosexuality to his family, before dying of AIDS in 1983.

In December 2007, Heche lost primary physical custody of her five-year-old son Homer in a court battle with her estranged husband Coley Laffoon. A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge awarded videographer Laffoon custody of their child and Heche was also ordered to pay $15,000 a month in child and spousal support and pay for 90 per cent of the cost of Homer's private-school tuition, medical bills and extracurricular activities. Heche will spend every other weekend with Homer when she's in Los Angeles, where the youngster attends school.

In May 2007, Heche's estranged husband, Coley Laffoon filed papers in Los Angeles seeking primary physical custody of their son Homer, calling the actress an unsuitable mum, who refuses to seek help for her reported psychological issues. Laffoon, who filed for divorce in February 2007, claimed the actress' "bizarre and delusional behavior" could be a problem if she wins full custody of the couple's five-year-old. Shortly after these papers were filled a spokesman for Heche said, "It is disappointing that Coley Laffoon has resorted to filing lies with the court because Anne would not cave in to his astronomical monetary demands, including his demand for $45,000 a month in support. For the past several years, the child's father has refused to get a job in order to contribute financially to the child's care.

On the brouhaha over Heche's disclosure of her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, director Ivan Reitman (director of "Six Days, Seven Nights") told USA Today (April 29, 1997): "It's all starting to feel like a Jackie Collins novel. I hired her [Heche] because she was great. When she auditioned, I wasn't aware of her homosexuality. I don't think she is a homosexual, by the way. I think she's probably bisexual. She's gone out with all kinds of guys."