Jodie Foster at Golden Globes “I already did my coming out”

At 50, Jodie Foster is the youngest actor to have ever received the Cecille B. DeMille award at the Golden Globes, which recognizes “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.” She gave a long, moving speech that addressed how she feels about her privacy, while also addressing her sexuality, and giving acknowledgment to her ex-girlfriend and co-parent Cydney Bernard. She also said this was going to be her last time on any stage, but she still wanted to tell stories, and still wanted her voice to be heard.

She started out a little light, doing an impression of Molly Shannon’s SNL character Sally O’Malley, who enthusiastically proclaims “I’m 50 years old.”

She went on to thank her award presenter Robert Downey Jr. for continuously talking her out of quitting acting. She started when she was 3, so she’s been in the biz for 47 years.

“Tonight, I feel like the prom queen. Look at all those clips, the hair dos and the freaking platform shoes. It’s like a home movie nightmare that just won’t end. And all of these people sitting her at this tables are a family of sorts, fathers mostly. Executives, producers, directors, my fellow actors out there. We’ve giggled through love scenes. We’ve punched and cried and spit and vomited, and blown snot all over one another, and those were just the co-stars I liked.

But more than anyone else, I share my most special memories with members of the crew. Bloodshaking friendships, brothers and sisters. We made movies together, and you can’t get more intimate than that.

So while I’m here being all confessional, I guess I just have a sudden urge to say something that I’ve never really been able to air in public. So, a declaration that I’m a little nervous about, but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist. Hi Jennifer! Um, but I’m just gonna put it out there, you know? Loud and proud. So I’m gonna need your support on this.

The audience was rapt at this point after a build-up

I am single.I’m kidding. I’m not really kidding. I mean, thank you for the enthusiasm. Can I get a whistle or something? (At this point on our telecast the volume was lost, what was edited out?)

I am not giving a coming out speech tonight, because I already did my coming out about a 1000 years ago back in the Stone Age. In those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and coworkers and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now, apparently, I’m told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance, and a prime time reality show.

And, you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. No. I’m sorry, that’s just not me, and it never will be. But please don’t cry because my reality show would be so boring. I would have to make out with Marion Cotillard, I would have to spank Daniel Craig’s bottom just to stay on the air. It’s not bad work if you can get it, though.

But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you’d had to fight for a life that felt real and normal and honest against all odds, then maybe then you too might value privacy above all else.

Privacy. One day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was. I have given everything up there from the time that I was three years old. That’s reality show enough, don’t you think?

There are a few secrets to keeping your psyche intact over such a long career: Love people, and stay beside them.”

Jodie goes on to point out her agent and other people she’s been working with, and then turns to Mel Gibson, who’s been sitting beside her all night “Of course, Mel Gibson, you know you saved me too.”

She goes on:

“There is no way I could stand here without acknowledging one of the deepest loves of my life, my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life, my confessor, ski buddy, consigliere, most beloved, BFF of 20 years Cydney Bernard, thank you Cyd. I am so proud of our modern family, our amazing sons Charlie and Kit who are my reason to breathe, and to evolve, my blood and soul. And boys, in case you didn’t know it, this song, all of this. This song is for you.

This brings me to the greatest influence of my life, my amazing mother Evelyn. Mom, I know you’re inside those blue eyes somewhere, and that there are so many things that you won’t understand tonight, but this is the only important one to take in. I love you. I love you. I love you. And I hope that if I say this three times it will magically and perfectly enter into your soul and feel you with grace and the joy of knowing that you did good in this life, you were a great mom. Please take that with you when you are finally ok to go. See Charlie and Kit, sometimes your mom loses it too.

I can’t help but feel mooney. This feels like the end of one era, and the beginning of something else. Scary, exciting, and now what? Well, I will never be up on the stage again, on any stage, for that matter. Change. You gotta love it. I will continue to tell stories, to move people by being moved. The greatest job in the world. It’s just from now on I may be holding a different talking stick, and maybe it won’t be as sparkly, maybe it won’t open on 3000 screens. Maybe it will be so quiet and delicate that only dogs can hear it whistle, but it will be my writing on the wall: Jodie Foster was here, I still am, and I want to be seen, to be understood deeply, and to be not so very lonely. Thank you, all of you, for the company. Here’s to the next 50 years.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house after that. Is Jodie quitting acting forever? If so, she should have another one of those talks with Robert Downey Jr.

Jodie met her ex Cydney, a movie producer, on the set of 1993’s ‘Sommersby,’ and they reportedly parted ways in 2008. This isn’t the first time Jodie has spoken publicly about Cydney, in 2007 she received the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award for Women In Entertainment and addressed Cydney “(Thank you to) my beautiful Cydney who sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss.”

Here are Jodie and Cydney in 2005: