Content warning: This story includes descriptions of child sexual abuse that may be distressing to some readers.

When actor Anne Heche saw Ellen DeGeneres for the first time she was immediately drawn to her.

They were both at theVanity FairOscars party in 1997. Heche said they had an instant connection.

"Our souls connected, and there's a time when souls come together and they're just meant to be… My soul was meant to be with hers and that's all that matters," she said on the Irish Goodbye podcast.

Reflecting on that moment at the Oscars afterparty, Heche said that DeGeneres was "radiating".

"I saw the most ravishing woman I had ever seen in my life standing across the room. I think at certain times in people's lives you just radiate an energy and a glow of fabulousness. And that was her. I had never seen anybody so lit up," she said.

In the same year, DeGeneres shared her sexuality publicly via herTimemagazine cover emblazoned with the words, "Yep, I'm Gay". For Heche, she had never been with another woman before meeting DeGeneres. But she knew there was something for the two of them to explore together.

And in 1997, the pair's decision to date publicly was considered "groundbreaking" for the time. Only recently has Heche reflected on the influence that decision had on not only their lives, but their careers and the future for LGBTQIA+ activism.

Heche was born in 1969 and grew up across America with her parents and four siblings, who were often relocating from one town to another.

From a very young age, Heche was a victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of her father.

"He raped me. I think it's always hard for children to talk about abuse because it is only a memory. I didn't carry around a tape recorder… I didn't chisel anything in stone… Anybody can look and say, 'Well how do you know for sure?' And that's one of the most painful things about it," she said to ABC News.

Throughout her younger years, Heche also experienced homelessness. Heche also said she had developed herpes as a young girl, as a result of the sexual abuse.

"I had a rash, I had sores, I had welts on my nose and on my lips."

Then in the early 1980s, Heche and her family discovered that her father, Donald Heche, had been diagnosed with AIDS. Donald – who was a Baptist minister and choir director – had allegedly been having extramarital affairs with men and women.

When Heche found out her father had AIDS, she feared for her life and the risk of transmission.

In 1983, Donald died from the disease, aged 45. According to Heche, he never admitted to being gay.

When Donald died, Heche was free from his abuse. But that didn't mean she was free from trauma – the memories still lingered.

After years of therapy, Heche confronted her mother about Donald's sexual abuse.

"She hung up the phone on me," Heche recalled. "To have gone through so much work to heal myself and have my mother not acknowledge in any way that she was sorry for what had happened to me broke my heart."

Heche said her relationship with her mother was estranged from that point on, and became further strained when Heche started dating a woman (DeGeneres).

Heche's family struggles continued. The same year her father died, Heche's brother Nathan died at age 18, after his car crashed into a tree. It remains unclear after investigation whether or not it was an intentional crash. One of Heche's sisters also sadly died from brain cancer.

Given all Heche had endured in her life up to that point, she said meeting and falling in love with Ellen was what saved her.

"Ellen represented everything that my father never was," Heche said to Barbara Walters.

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"She was free. She owned her sexuality. So here I met a dream, a person, who was changing the world with her openness about her sexuality and embracing it in herself. And that, to me, was stunning."

Around the time Heche was dating DeGeneres, her career in Hollywood was doing well. She had starred in films likeVolcano, Pyscho, Donnie Brasco, plusSix Days, Seven Nights.

But when Heche made the decision to take her girlfriend to the premiere of her filmVolcanoin 1997, everything changed.

In 2020, during her stint onDancing with the Stars, Heche said that 1997 event severely impacted her career – because the execs of her film were furious with her for bringing a woman as her date.

"I had told them that I was taking Ellen as my date and I was told if I took Ellen I would lose my Fox contract," Heche revealed.

"At that moment, she took my hand and said, 'Do what they say' and I said, 'No thanks.' I took Ellen to the premiere and I was ushered out before the movie even ended and was told I was not allowed to go to my own after party for fear that they would get pictures of me with a woman."

Heche said DeGeneres had warned her this could happen, given the sheer amount of stigma and homophobia that was rife in society at the time.

"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 multi-million dollar picture deal and I did not work in a studio picture for ten years."

They were together until 2000, when the couple announced they had decided to split.

"We had gotten to the point where we were not happy together anymore. We had become isolated from the world, together," Heche told Barbara Walters.

The breakup severely affected Heche and her mental health. The day after their split, Heche said she was in a confused and shaken state, wandering door to door and ended up in a stranger's backyard.

After hitting rock bottom, Heche sought help.

She went on to star in a few films and TV shows here and there over the next decade, as well as recently working in podcasting.