Jodie Foster at 2013 Golden Globes: I came out "a thousand years ago"
When Jodie Foster accepted the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award on Sunday night at the Golden Globe Awards, she gave a speech that both wowed and confused some viewers -- and also brought audience members to tears.
Foster, 50, teased the crowd by suggesting she would be coming out as gay at the awards ceremony. She ended up dancing around it -- but acknowledging her sexuality -- in a clever way.
"While I'm here being all confessional, I just have the sudden urge to say something I've never been able to say in public," she said. "A declaration that I'm a little nervous about. Not quite as nervous as my publicist, huh, Jennifer? But uh, you know, I'm just going to put it out there. Loud and proud. I'm going to need your support. I am -- single."
"I hope you won't be disappointed that this is not some big coming out speech," Foster added. "I already did my coming-out about a thousand years ago back in the stone age." She said she already came out to family and friends a long time ago.
Foster, who has long tried to keep her private life private, joked about how celebrities often feel obligated to make a big deal about coming out as gay -- either with a reality show, or a press conference.
"You just might be surprised but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child," she joked, adding, "Please don't cry, because my reality show would be so boring."
In the long, rambling, but seemingly well-prepared speech, Foster also talked about her many years in showbiz and growing up as a child star.
"If you had been a public figure since the time you were a toddler, if you had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you too would value privacy above all else," Foster said.
The veteran actress thanked Cydney Bernard, her former partner of 20 years, with whom she shares two sons.
And although she may have sounded as though she was retiring from acting at times in her speech, Foster made it clear backstage that she had no plans of calling it quits.
"I could never stop acting," she said, according to Entertainment Weekly. "You'd have to drag me behind a team of horses. I'll never stop acting. I'd like to be directing tomorrow. I'm more into it than I've ever been."