Jodie Foster Thanks Cydney in Accepting Sherry Lansing Leadership Award

In a surprising and moving speech on Tuesday, Jodie Foster, 45, thanked "my beautiful Cydney who sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss" when she accepted the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award at the 16th annual Women in Entertainment Power 100 breakfast.

The reporter covering the event, Greg Hernandez, noted surprise "at the public acknowledgment of who I presume is Cydney Bernard, the woman who is widely reported to be her life partner," because Foster has always been "so intensely private."

In her speech, which the Daily News described as "funny and heart-warming," Foster went on to say, "I don't feel very powerful. 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 as nutty as a fruitcake."

Characterizing herself as a "professional" and a "gentleman," Foster admitted: "I always feel like something of an impostor. I don't know what I'm doing. I suppose that's my one little secret, the secret of my success."

But, she added: "Growing up, there were hardly any women in my professional sphere — there was maybe a script supervisor, the makeup artist and the lady who played my mother. I became the prodigal daughter after I proved myself in a family of men."

Foster has steadfastly refused to discuss or publicly acknowledge her relationship with Cydney Bernard, whom she reportedly met on the set of Sommersby in 1993. Although Bernard has accompanied her to premieres and public events outside the United States, Foster has never brought her to public events in America.

But in the last year or so, Foster has seemed to be taking small steps toward making her private life a little bit more public.

In an interview in September to promote her recent film 'The Brave One,' the interviewer commented on the Tiffany ring she was wearing, and Foster acknowledged it was "an eternity ring" that she never takes off, but refused to elaborate further. That same month she used the word "partner" for the first time in an interview, when commenting on her acting career to The Denver Post, saying, “I need to have something that doesn't belong to my mom, doesn’t belong to my kids, doesn’t belong to my partner.”

When Foster donated funds in July to the newly opened Saban Center for Health and Wellness in Woodland Hills, Calif., she also donated plaques bearing the handprints of her sons, Kit Bernard Foster and Charles Bernard Foster.

"I just wanted to stand for what I stand for," Foster said yesterday. "I wasn't really interested in living someone else's career."