Anne Heche Marries, Uncovers Past

By Stephen M. Silverman

Tuesday September 04, 2001 02:22 PM EDT

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Anne Heche, 32, married cameraman Coleman "Coley" Laffoon, 27, Saturday in Los Angeles, according to publicist Brad Cafarelli, who said that 75 friends and relatives of the couple attended their intimate "celebration and ceremony" on the grounds of a 1920s-era villa in Los Angeles. He said the couple would honeymoon after Heche conducts a 10-city book tour to promote her autobiography, "Call Me Crazy." Heche, who split with Ellen DeGeneres in August of last year, reportedly met Laffoon while he was working on a documentary about DeGeneres's stand-up comedy tour. When they were together, Heche and DeGeneres were considered the country's most prominent lesbian couple. As for her memoir, Heche reveals in its pages that she spent the first 31 years of her life suffering from mental illness that she says was triggered by sexual abuse at the hands of her father. (Donald Heche was a choir director in a Baptist church who frequented gay bars at night. Heche found out about her father's double life at the age of 12, as he lay dying of AIDS.) Heche described herself as "insane," according to ABCNEWS.com. In a session of ABC's "20/20" that airs Wednesday, interviewer Barbara Walters asks Heche: "Were you really insane as most of think of insane?" Replies Heche: "You would have to define what most people think is insane." The actress then goes on to explain that she believed she was two people. One was Anne Heche, The other was Celestia, who was from another planet and spoke in a different language directly with God. As for the present, "I'm here," says Heche. "I could not be more elated with my life."