Anne Heche Hid Rumored Fling From Ellen DeGeneres at Start of Romance, Explosive Book Reveals: 'I Don’t Want My Girlfriend to Know'

Anne Heche was very protective of her relationship with Ellen Degeneres, according to former Entertainment Tonight producer Fran Weinstein.

Promoting her new, Tortured Soles, Weinstein told an outlet how she got into a dispute with the late actress over an interview in which she brought up rumors that Heche had a fling with Vince Vaughn while filming the 1998 remake of Psycho. Heche was notably dating DeGeneres at the time.

"After asking the perfunctory questions, I asked her, 'How much fun was it to reunite with Vince Vaughn?'" Weinstein recalled. "Because they had just done a movie before that. And she said, ‘Oh, it was really fun. He was awesome.’ Then her eyes opened like a sinkhole because she saw I was going further."

"And so I said, 'Well, rumor had it that you guys were an item while making the movie,'" she recounted. "Oh, my God. Her jaw dropped to the floor, and she said, 'I don’t want you to talk about it. I don’t want anybody to know about this. I don’t want my girlfriend to know about it.'"

"She had just gotten together with Ellen DeGeneres," Weinstein continued. "Their romance was new, and I guess she just did not want anything to muddy the waters, shall we say."

The author explained they then moved on and discussed Heche's Christmas plans with DeGeneres. But she soon realized the Emmy winner was not happy about the interview.

"She gets up, walks to the door, we say thanks and goodbye," said Weinstein. "She whips her head around and says to me, 'I don’t want you to use that stuff about me and Vince Vaughn.' I said, 'No problem. I told you I wouldn’t. Have a nice day.'"

Weinstein went on, "The crew and I are now packing up, and I hear a knock at the door. It’s the studio publicist. She goes, 'Fran, she wants the tape.' I said, 'What? That’s not happening. We don’t do that. That’s my notebook. Just tell her it’s all good. I’m moving on. I’m not using the stuff about Vince Vaughn.' She said, 'OK, I’ll tell her.'"

"We’re still packing up," she explained. "Next thing I know, there’s another knock at the door. Now it’s her personal publicist. He said, 'She wants the tape back.' 'I said, 'She’s not getting the tape, OK? This is a dangerous precedent, and we’re not setting it now.' He said, 'If you don’t give her the tape, you’ll never get another interview with her again.' And I said, 'I don’t care.' I slammed the door."

"We get to the elevators, and [out came] Anne Heche," she said. "I’m wagging my finger in her face: 'You’re not getting the tape.' She starts screaming at me: 'You don’t respect me! You don’t respect my girlfriend!'"

The women allegedly got into a screaming match inside Weinstein's St. Regis hotel suite in New York City, where the interview just took place. Weinstein claimed she sprayed Heche with a lavender scent as the actress chain-smoked.

Eventually, she lied down on her bed, which she called her "fatal mistake."

"I just felt like this wind came over me," said Weinstein. "It was like a ghost had been in the room. I looked up, and she’s gone. And guess what? My tape is gone."

Weinstein went after Heche, threatening to call the police while a studio publicist pleaded with her to stop because "it'll get in the papers."

After barging into Heche's suite and demanding she return the tape, the Six Days, Seven Nights star allegedly told Weinstein, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Weinstein said she alerted police, but Heche and her team were already en route back to Hollywood. A rep for the actress reportedly insisted at the time that Heche "never left with the tape and doesn't have it now."

"Years later, I was told by a pretty good source that she had instructed this person in her entourage to throw the tape into a New York City sewer," said Weinstein.

Heche's manager told Fox News Digital in a statement: "That account is inaccurate. It’s disappointing to see untrue narratives circulate at a time when honesty and respect should come first. The focus should be on honoring her memory, not rewriting it to sell books."

Heche died in 2022 at age 53 following a fiery car crash in Los Angeles.