Paul Drinkwater/NBCJodie Foster's emotional Golden Globes speech made quite an impact.
And while the Cecil B. DeMille Award recipient didn't explicitly come out as a lesbian, the 50-year-old star alluded to her sexuality and relationships in her speech, concluding that she preferred to keep her private life private. Spokesmen for GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign based in Washington D.C. praised Foster for taking a stand.
"Whenever anybody of the stature of Jodie Foster, a respected actress for almost 50 years, comes out and talks about her personal life and sexuality it's a big deal," Wilson Cruz, GLAAD spokesperson and actor on My So-Called Life, told E! News.
Cruz noted that while "some people want [Foster] to be more forthright…it is not our job to tell people how or when to come out…" Cruz added that Foster used Sunday as "a great opportunity for her to say I am not ashamed of who I am."
Fred Sainz, spokesperson for Human Right Campaign, thought Foster's speech "took an incredible amount of guts and she should be commended for this and she was under no responsibility to do so.
"While awkward and clearly uncomfortable, the sense of the message I got was that she didn't want [her sexuality] to be the headline," Sainz added. "She merely wants to be known for the quality of her work and relationships in her life and not her sexuality and that is a lofty goal we are all working towards."
—Reporting by Senta Scarborough and Marc Malkin