Jennifer Grey Recalls when she Learned Dad Joel Grey was Gay: 'A Sniper Attack'

Actress Jennifer Grey opened up to People magazine about the moment she learned her dad Oscar-winner Joel Grey was gay. �

"At the time, it was, like, warfare. It was an act of aggression. Perhaps she was offended by the lack of transparency," she said. "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."

She discovered her dad's sexuality from an unlikely source – actor Matthew Broderick's mother. Grey was dating him in the late 1980s and went to visit Broderick at home at the time, but he wasn't there. Instead she spoke to his mother, who bluntly told her: "You know your dad's a fag."

Grey recalled being stunned in the moment.

"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 told People. "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?"

And feels that discussions of the sexuality of celebrities is a waste of time. "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."

Grey made the revelation in her upcoming book "Out of the Corner�out May 3. Grey is most famous for playing "Baby" in the 1987 megahit "Dirty Dancing." "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."