Hollywood actress Jodie Foster was at the epicenter of harsh critique from fans saying she looks old after being spotted out rocking her often-seen gray roots and make-up-free face. Since coming out at 51 and following years of hiding her relationships, Foster is now 60 years old and lives a happy life with her wife, Alexandra Hedison, and her two children. The star pays critics no mind, and says she is satisfied with ageing.
Jodie Foster is an iconic award-winning Hollywood actress best known for her prominent roles in “Taxi Driver,” “The Accused,” and “The Silence of the Lambs.” Born to Evelyn “Brandy” Ella and Lucius Fisher Foster III on November 19, 1962, she began her acting career at the tender age of 3.
Foster studied at Lycée Français de Los Angeles – a private prep school in California, where she became fluent in French. By the time she was 12, she had earned her first breakout role in Martin Scorsese’s dark drama “Taxi Driver,” where she starred opposite Robert De Niro.
Foster started to grow uncomfortable with her rising popularity. Thus, in an effort to seek out any form of anonymity and ordinary experiences, she enrolled herself at Yale University following her graduation from high school.
After graduating from Yale, she returned to acting. She featured in some less noteworthy series productions until her role as Sarah Tobias in “The Accused” garnered her both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Actress. This feat established her as one of Hollywood’s most premiere actresses.
Continuing to ride the wave of her success, she scored another formidable role that made a lasting impression in the industry as Clarice Starling – an FBI agent who goes head to head with psychopathic Hannibal Lechter in the classic “The Silence of the Lambs.” Foster won her second Academy Award and Golden Globe for this role.
All the accomplishments she achieved and all the recognition and praise she garnered from peers in the industry and the public at large prompted her to pursue directing. In 1991 she debuted her first directorial feature film, “Little Man Tate,” which received widespread praise and approval from critics and fans alike.
Foster’s career is arguably one of the most accomplished in Hollywood history. Having started from such a young age, she was immediately catapulted into the spotlight, where everyone – fans and interviewers alike, wanted to know more about her beyond her work life.
During a sit-down interview in 1979, a 17-year-old Foster was asked about her life. Starting with basic information, such as the school she attended and how she grew up, and continuing with what she sees herself doing after college, Foster was forthcoming with her answers to the questions.
However, when it came time to talk about her love life or lack thereof, Foster was less keen to give insight into that. When asked if she had a steady boyfriend, she almost instantly responded with a no and said that she tends not to think of that often. Not realizing the topic was something Foster appeared as though she was not interested in talking about, the interviewer pushed on.
The interviewer then proceeded to ask what kind of gentleman Foster saw herself being interested in. At the time, Foster was hiding a secret about her sexual orientation, which she would only reveal 34 years later. Instead of confirming whether her future partner would be male or female, Foster answered the question by choosing not to assign a specific gender to the person:
“I don’t know. I suppose I would like somebody who understood my business and who would be able to understand that when someone – when you’re on camera, and someone comes up to you and says, ‘Jodie, you’re beautiful!’ that it doesn’t mean anything, that it’s just what you say.”
In 2023, Foster was set to star in the fourth edition of HBO’s crime anthology series “True Detective: Night Country.” The series is based in Alaska and showcases Foster as a lead detective.
The trailer of the long-anticipated series came out on April 12, 2023, and the reviews were mixed. Though some fans were thrilled to see Foster staring in the show, many felt otherwise.
In the trailer, Foster appears sporting her gray hair and naturally ageing face. A lot of negative comments started swirling around, speaking to the fact that some people were shocked to see Foster getting older and implying that her ageing is nothing close to graceful:
“She is getting old.”
Despite Foster embracing how she looks and being okay with getting older, an array of people continued to comment harshly. Many critics on Twitter, Facebook, as well as YouTube resumed slamming the “Panic Room” star for looking “old,” and one user rudely alluded to the possibility of her getting a botched facelift:
“I hope she hasn’t gotten one of those facelifts that gives everyone who gets one that permanent ‘pork chopsh and apple shauce’ lishp thing.”
As a juxtaposition to the influx of negativity, a lot of Foster die-hard fans countered the hate with love. One particular YouTube viewer thought she and the trailer looked good:
“Looks good.”
As the trailer garnered more views, many fans continued to steer the polls to a place of positivity. Another fan made it a point to express the love she has for Foster:
“I love this woman.”
Comments about the star’s appearance turned from being about how old she looks to how beautiful she still is to this day. Another viewer of the trailer commented:
“What a smart and gorgeous Woman.”
Foster is now 60 years old and is married to American photographer Alexandra Hedison. Before meeting her wife, Foster had two sons – Charlie and Kit, with her ex-partner Cydney Bernard. This was still during the time that she had not come out yet.
A few years after she had her sons and split from Bernard, Foster came out as lesbian at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards. This was the year that she won a Cecil B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement.
During her acceptance speech, Foster revealed the secret she had been keeping from the wider public for a while. As she accepted her award, she nervously declared her true sexuality in a beat-around-the-bush sort of way where she never outright said the word lesbian.
Instead, she only alluded to the fact that she was single and living life loud and proud. Later on in the speech, she acknowledged her partner, Hedison and addressed the need for celebrities to have more privacy than they have previously been allotted.
According to several sources, there had already been a long-running rumor of Foster being lesbian for years. Which made her speech at the Golden Globes monumental in confirming the rumors to be true.
In the same way she had acknowledged her partner back in 2013, at the 2021 Golden Globes, Foster made a virtual appearance on stage while accepting her award for Best Supporting Actress with Hedison and their dog at her side. When best friend Jamie Lee Curtis announced Foster as the winner, she valiantly planted a tender kiss on Hedison’s lips and professed her love for her to display her proud affection for her partner.
Hedison has been Foster’s wife for nine years, and the couple married in 2014 after only one year of dating. The couple has been extremely private about their relationship regarding being in the public eye but still actively supports each other at every event.
Foster’s wife is a photographer who has both private and public collections across the globe in multiple museums and galleries. Besides photography, Hedison has also designed houses and was featured in a design-based reality series in 2006.
Much like her wife, she had also dabbled in the acting world for some time. She garnered a role alongside Debra Messing in “Prey,” and in the late 90s, she played supporting roles in “Melrose Place” and “Lois & Clark.”
She went on to star in Showtime’s “The L Word” and made her directorial debut in 2005 with her short film “In the Doghouse.” However, having found acting unsatisfying, she chose to pursue photography.
Foster is at a place in her life where she realizes the importance of prioritizing her mental and physiological health more so than anything.
Hedison was born and raised in Los Angeles as the daughter of famous actor David Hedison. Her mother – Bridget Hedison, had worked as a production associate on “Dynasty.”
Apart from her parents, she has been tied to other famous people, like Ellen DeGeneres, whom she dated from 2000 to 2004. The two had even discussed adopting a child together before they split.
She and Foster tied the knot in a top-secret wedding ceremony and prior to getting married, the couple had not even announced their engagement. As mentioned before, the duo prefers to keep their relationship as private as possible, away from the public eye.
However, because Hedison is incredibly supportive of Foster’s career, the two will make occasional debuts together on red-carpet events, holding hands, sharing a kiss, and gazing lovingly at each other. The happy couple has remained in marital bliss since the conception of their union and they never miss an opportunity to brag about the other.
Regardless of what haters have to say about how Foster looks as she gets older, the star not only has made peace with the natural progression of life but insists on celebrating it. During an interview with AARP, Foster stated that she was particularly looking forward to her 60s and 70s because she is excited about the fascinating characters she will get to play that fall into this age cohort.
Foster describes her 50s as the transitional period for ageing actresses because of the supposed limited scope of roles one gets to play in this category. The Hollywood actress went further to say that she currently enjoys playing older characters and is sure she will continue to enjoy playing older characters throughout the longevity of her career.
Foster feels as though ageing helps one realize that slow and steady wins the race when it comes to reactionary behavior. The “Contact” star disclosed:
“In youth, there are those chimpanzee-like reactions, where something happens, and then you react to it immediately. And when we’re older, we don’t like panic, we don’t like multitasking, [and] we want to be prepared.”
Carrying on with her positive attitude toward ageing, Foster was asked how she sees herself spending her AARP years. In her answer, she said one of the things she looks forward to the most is the freedom of being rid of the ridiculous expectations she set on herself in her youthful years and showing herself some grace:
“I don’t have to try to compete with my younger self anymore. And to me, that’s really…grace. That’s wonderful [and] it makes me much happier.”
Foster is at a place in her life where she realizes the importance of prioritizing her mental and physiological health more so than anything. She has always made a conscious effort to put her sense of self-worth and psychological health first since she began acting.
She credits this attitude to what helped her beat becoming another statistic of being an ex-Hollywood child actor who falls to the wayside after getting caught up in trouble. Foster says she does not know where she would be currently had it not been for this self-actualization. In keeping with her health-conscious ways, Foster practices meditation every day.
After keeping her true self hidden for so long, Foster fully embraces her beautiful pride-filled life with her significant other. She says that outside of the month of June being pride month, in her home, every day is essentially pride:
“Every day is gay pride day for me…My kids will go to the parade.”
Besides the rare occasional appearances, for the most part, Foster tends to try her best to keep her sons away from the limelight for protective purposes. However, she admits slight regret from having kept especially her eldest son – Charles, away from film sets, but says that it was all to give them a chance at a normal life, and so for a while, her son had no idea she was an actress:
“I didn’t want them to know about my celebrity at all. I remember when my son was about four, he thought I was a construction worker.”
As a boy mom of two raising children in the #MeToo era, Foster finds it imperative to raise her sons to know the importance of consent. In an exclusive interview with Porter, the star reported being thankful to her children’s school, which supports programs that initiate discussions in this regard.
Steering the conversation back to her career, Foster reported on how her journey to Hollywood was unlike others. She recognizes being lucky to have gotten her start in the industry without having to struggle as an artist starting out in Hollywood with only a few cents to their name.
In the same vein as Foster’s loved ones only making rare appearances, apart from industry events, she and her wife have only been sighted by paparazzi a few times. One of these rare sightings came on January 4, 2023, when Foster and Hedison were photographed on their way to get lunch.
A few months later, the couple was spotted again attending the 2023 MOCA Gala in April. Foster looked ageless as she showed off her slightly gray roots and posed for the cameras while smiling, adorned in some chic silk pants, a white blouse, a smart black jacket, and a colorful purse. Similarly, her gray-haired wife, Hedison, wore dark-colored slack pants, a green blouse, a black suit jacket, and a niche feather necklace.
Though Foster may be 60 years old, she still looks terrific. Regardless of what critics have to say, she remains unfazed and is happy to be ageing. She continues to live out loud and be proud of who she is with her wife and two sons.