Is the man who inspired Jodie Foster to 'come out' the secret father of her two children?

May 2024 · 9 minute read
The Saturday morning calm of a tiny and trendy Californian health food cafe is broken by the excited arrival of two fair-haired young boys who burst in and make a noisy beeline for the cake counter.

They are followed by two women, dressed casually in matching jeans, T-shirts and oversized sunglasses.

This boisterous group's arrival is enough to distract the chi-chi clientele from their weekend papers and soya milk lattes, not least because as the boys begin barking out their breakfast orders, they address one of the women as "Mommy" and the other as "Ma".

The surreptitious stares of her fellow diners are met with a tight smile of resignation by Jodie Foster - although for most in this exclusive suburb of Los Angeles, the Oscar-winning actress's somewhat unorthodox living arrangements have been an open secret for years.

It is a secret she has, until now, guarded closely from the wider world. This week, however, Miss Foster finally broke her silence about her 14-year lesbian relationship with film producer Cydney Bernard.

In a speech to a gathering of fellow Hollywood stars, the 45-year-old, who was collecting an award, pointedly thanked: "My beautiful Cydney, who sticks by me through all the rotten and the bliss."

It was a declaration of affection that took even those closest to Miss Foster by surprise, and her first public recognition of 54-year-old Miss Bernard, who shares the actress's home and the care of her sons, Charlie, nine, and six-year-old Kit.

Her previous refusal to put her private life in the spotlight was illustrated during a now familiar charade played out by the actress at a recent premiere of a children's movie in Hollywood.

As Foster stepped on to the red carpet to pose for photographers outside the El Capitan Theatre, observers noticed Miss Bernard and the two boys standing forlornly behind the ropes with other members of the star-spotting public.

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Jodie Foster and Cydney Bernard with kids

It was only when their mother was firmly inside the building and away from prying lenses that Charlie, Kit and Miss Bernard trudged inside, unnoticed by the paparazzi.

So why, given her blanket refusal to discuss her sexuality, has Jodie suddenly decided to come clean?

The answer, I can reveal, might also finally unravel the mystery of the man who fathered her children.

Her normally tight-lipped friends have disclosed that Miss Foster made a promise to her best friend, gay film director Randy Stone before his death from heart failure in February, that she would go public about her relationship with Miss Bernard.

Stone, a gay rights activist, is said to have persuaded her to ditch her fears that admitting she is a lesbian could damage her career.

More significantly, many close to Stone believe he went to his grave keeping another secret - that he was the testtube father to Jodie's sons.

However, Miss Foster has steadfastly refused to name the man, even to her oldest friends.

Last night, his minister mother, the Rev Beverly Stone, told me: "I'd give my soul to know, because I've lost my son now and I would love to have something of his to live on in those boys.

"Obviously, I knew all about the rumours, but as close as we were, the subject of whether he was the boys' father was strictly taboo as far as Randy was concerned.

"I do know he loved those boys.

"He was their godfather and would always move into Jodie's house and take care of them when she was away filming.

"And he and Jodie did truly love each other. She gave the eulogy at his funeral and called him her best friend - but neither of them would ever say anything about the boys.

"If Jodie did ask him to be the father of her children, I know he'd have said 'yes'.

"But it was a subject that was always off limits because he knew how private Jodie is, and that's why he wouldn't even tell me.

"We had to respect that, but it is very hard not knowing, now that Randy's gone."

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Rumours have circulated in Hollywood since the birth of her sons that Miss Foster, who earns up to £10.5 million a film, had recruited a gay male friend to be the surrogate father.

Certainly, all the evidence points to Stone, who worked on the Nineties hit television series The X Files.

In 2000, he brought a wrongful dismissal case against his former employers, 20th Century Fox.

Court documents from the time reveal that Stone, who has no other children, claimed he had been fired after asking for paternity leave at exactly the same time that Miss Foster had her first child.

Last night, Beverly Stone confirmed to me that her son had asked for the paternity leave to help care for Charlie and Miss Foster in her first days of motherhood.

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"Randy just wanted to be there for her and Charlie," said Rev Stone, who now lives in Hawaii.

"He always played a big part in Charlie and Kit's lives.

"The boys were always asking him to take them to Disneyland and they really loved him.

"I've often looked to see if there is any similarity between them and Randy, but they look so much like their mother.

"Randy was close to Cydney, too. They all got along very well."

Sources close to Stone say that he had long tried to persuade Miss Foster, who won Oscars for her roles as a rape victim in The Accused and as FBI agent Clarice Starling in The Silence Of The Lambs, to go public and admit she is gay.

They say she decided to come out after attending a Christmas gala last week in aid of the charity established by Stone to help gay teenagers who might be considering suicide.

In the past, she has been a secret donor to the cause, giving more than £300,000 to the Trevor Project, named after the short film, Trevor, for which Stone won an Academy Award in 1994.

But last weekend, she appeared in person at the event to pay a moving tribute to Stone, who was married to Barbra Streisand's sister, Roslyn Kind, before announcing his homosexuality.

Two days later, Miss Foster appeared at Hollywood's annual Entertainment Power 100 breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel and, in front of an audience that included John Travolta, acknowledged her lesbian lover for the first time.

She added: "I feel fragile, unsure, struggling to figure it all out, trying to get there even though I'm not sure where there is.

"I've been working in this business for 42 years and there's no way you can do that and not be nutty as a fruitcake."

According to one of her associates: "It was her way of honouring Randy.

"She has always been intensely private and gone to extraordinary lengths to keep her relationship with Cydney a secret.

"But he felt that she should come out, because it might offer help to young people struggling with their sexuality.

"She always felt that this type of admission could damage her career, but she's 45 now and not looking to play romantic leads opposite men any more. She is far more keen on directing and producing."

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Foster, who, at the age of 14, found early stardom playing a child prostitute alongside Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, met Miss Bernard in 1993 on the set of Sommersby.

For several years the two women have worn matching Tiffany eternity rings on their wedding fingers, and Bernard was with the actress throughout both her labours.

Friends say Miss Foster has refused to employ household staff for fear that details of her home life would leak out.

She refuses to answer the telephone and until recently did not have a mobile phone.

She has remained terrified of stalkers, say those in her circle, ever since John Hinckley - who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981 - claimed he had planned the killing to impress her.

Like her character in the 2002 hit Panic Room, the actress is said to have installed a fortified safe area in the house after learning two years ago that 52-year-old Hinckley, who was acquitted of attempted murder after pleading insanity, is being allowed out from mental hospital for overnight visits with his parents near Washington.

Given her obsessive need for privacy, the Yale-educated actress was furious when her brother, Buddy, wrote a tell-all book, Foster Child, ten years ago in which he said he had always assumed she was lesbian or bisexual.

He also revealed how his sister had been pushed into showbusiness as a child by their fiercely ambitious mother, Brandy, who herself lived in a lesbian relationship with a woman known to the children as "Aunt Jo".

Their father, Lucius, a decorated U.S. Air Force pilot turned estate agent, had walked out five months before Jodie was born.

Buddy claimed his sister has had a series of affairs with both men and women, including a male French student she met as a teenager in Tahiti, and a male tennis player.

He also claimed she became "smitten" with British actor Julian Sands after appearing with him in the 1987 erotic drama Siesta.

Friends say she named her son Kit after Sands' character in the film. For Buddy's betrayal, which she branded "a cheap cry for attention and money", Foster cut him off once and for all.

Jodie is also said to have become close to Gladiator actor Russell Crowe after they met at a Hollywood party.

The couple attended the Golden Globes together in 2000 and were later seen kissing and hugging while out buying CDs on Sunset Boulevard.

But earlier this year she found herself featured on the cover of U.S. gay magazine Out, under the headline "The Glass Closet: Why the stars won't come out and play".

Said a friend of the star: "Jodie feels the time is right to put an end to the whispering. She's not ashamed, and Randy's death has made her face up to things."

For the sake of Stone's grieving mother - left wondering if Miss Foster's boys are really her grandchildren - it is to be hoped it is not the only secret the spotlight-hating star is planning to reveal.

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