One day, Jennifer Grey was visiting Matthew Broderick's home when he wasn't there, she recalls Broderick's mother telling her, "You know your dad's a fag."
Jennifer was stunned. "Perhaps she was offended by my lack of knowing. I don't know what she was thinking. She was, um, she was a tricky personality. I don't know how else to put it. Like, she was a truth teller, truth bombs. A Cassandra. She was, like, come what may."
"She just said whatever she believed was the truth — and perhaps she was doing me a solid. Maybe she thought: Is anybody gonna say what's happening in the world?"
Today Jennifer believes her father's sexuality is his and only his. "It's really only for him. I'm so exhausted by the reductiveness with which people want to out famous people and decide what people are. Like, who cares! People should feel good. And, besides, I think that sexuality is so much more interesting than gay or straight, bi. And, you know what I think about it all the time: he said my mom was the love of his life and I believe she was."
But Jennifer says over 30 years ago, it was a tough moment. "At the time, it was, like, warfare. It was an act of aggression. Perhaps she was offended by the lack of transparency. I don't know what anybody else is thinking. All I know, all I knew at the time was that it felt like it was a sniper attack. The idea was that I was a fool and that everyone knew but me."
The moment was pivotal for Jennifer. "The reason I put that in the book, was because it was one of those days that changed me. In the sense that how could I not know everything there was to know about my dad? I was the closest to him of anyone in the world. And he would never not tell me the truth. And that was the only thing that was hard about it was because I was confused because it was one of those moments where my reality was shaken up."
She's comfortable revisiting painful moments in her past, to gain new perspective. "There's a lot of rough stuff that happens in the book that happened in my life, along with amazing privilege, along with beautiful caring, loving parents, with incredible exposure to great artists and steeped in culture. Because it's not one thing, it's this beautiful gray. It's not black and white. I love my name. Grey. I love my name because it is not black or white. I can't believe like unconsciously what my dad chose that word, that name. [He was born Joel Katz.] But because of what it means, there are so many shades between black and white. There's so much complexity in human beings. Right?"