After a dramatic Dancing With the Stars exit, actress Anne Heche revealed what was really going through her head.
On an episode that aired Oct. 5, Anne and her partner Keo Motsepe were eliminated from the competition. The news came shortly after Anne talked about the struggles she faced while dating Ellen DeGeneres, her girlfriend from 1997 to 2000. She opened up about the romance, which was her first public relationship with a woman, after her performance to following her dance to Katy Perry song "Rise." The actress also reportedly did not do press, as is typical for contestants, following the elimination.
In a statement to Page Six, Anne revealed she was hurt by being sent home after discussing something so important on the show.
"The honest truth is that it took 20 years to process and share that story, so finally, telling it and being voted off on the same night was not the best feeling," the 51-year-old explained to the outlet. "It did feel good to tell my story to show that we have come a long way, and we see things with more acceptance now—even though we are not all the way there yet, it's important to recognize how far we have come."
Anne also revealed how she was told she would lose her contract with Fox if she took Ellen as her date to the movie premiere of her film Volcano.
"I took Ellen to the premiere and I was ushered out by security before the movie even ended and was told I was not allowed to go to my own after-party for fear they would get pictures of me with a woman," Anne explained. "I was in a relationship with Ellen DeGeneres for three and a half years and the stigma attached to that relationship was so bad that I was fired from my multimillion-dollar picture deal and I did not work in a studio picture for 10 years."
Anne's story wasn't the only big moment of the night. During the elimination, host Tyra Banks initially informed Monica Aldama and Val Chmerkovskiy that they were safe from elimination, only to bring them back into the bottom two after it was revealed that Tyra had the wrong names on the card. Ultimately, however, Monica and Val did not go home.
"There's been an error in our control room, but we're making it happen," Tyra said. "This is live TV, right? This is the craziness of live TV….I'm so sorry."