Ian Youngs
Culture reporter
Getty Images
Ellen DeGeneres, pictured in 2023, moved to the Cotswolds last November
US TV star Ellen DeGeneres has made her first public appearance since moving to the UK, saying she decided to settle in England the day after Donald Trump was re-elected US president.
The comedian and host told a crowd in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, that life “is just better” in the UK.
Ellen said she and wife Portia de Rossi were considering getting married again in England after some moves in the US to reverse the right to gay marriage, and that America can still be “scary for people to be who they are”.
She also addressed allegations of a toxic workplace that led to the end of her long-running chat show in 2022, admitting she could be “very blunt”, but dismissed the stories as “clickbait”.
‘We’re staying here’
Ellen was one of the biggest names on US TV for 30 years, thanks to her daytime chat show, as well as for her self-titled 1990s sitcom, for hosting the Oscars, Grammys and Emmys, and for voicing Dory in Finding Nemo.
After her talk show was cancelled, she went on a “final stand-up tour” in the US 2024 then bought a house in the Cotswolds, a historic and picturesque area mainly spanning parts of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire.
On Sunday at the Everyman theatre in nearby Cheltenham, she was in conversation with broadcaster Richard Bacon, who asked whether reports that she moved because of Donald Trump were correct. “Yes,” she replied.
The 67-year-old said she and De Rossi had initially planned to spend three or four months a year in the UK and bought what they thought would be “a part-time house”.
“We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, ‘He got in’,” she said. “And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here’.”
Getty Images
The Ellen DeGeneres Show started in 2003 and was cancelled in 2022
Ellen has been giving glimpses of her new rural life on social media, in videos showing her farm animals including sheep – although they have now been sold after they kept escaping.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” she said. “We’re just not used to seeing this kind of beauty. The villages and the towns and the architecture – everything you see is charming and it’s just a simpler way of life.
“It’s clean. Everything here is just better – the way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here.
“We moved here in November, which was not the ideal time, but I saw snow for the first time in my life. We love it here. Portia flew her horses here, and I have chickens, and we had sheep for about two weeks.”
Being gay in Hollywood ‘is still a problem’
On her last tour, she joked that she had been “kicked out of show business twice” – the first time being when she came out as gay in 1997.
That effectively led to the end of her sitcom after advertisers pulled out and the network stopped promoting it, she told the Cheltenham crowd on Sunday.
Bacon asked whether her visibility had encouraged other people to come out. “I would say no,” she replied. “I imagined a lot of people coming out like meerkats poking out of a hole and going back in again. ‘How’s she doing? OK, no, no.'”
But it is “a really hard decision” that doesn’t suit everyone, she continued, and said things are better today “in some ways” but not others.
“If it was [better], all these other people that are actors and actresses that I know they’re gay, they’d be out, but they’re not, because it’s still a problem. People are still scared.”
Getty Images
Ellen and Portia de Rossi wed in 2008 after gay marriage became legal in California
Ellen also referenced a recent move by the Southern Baptist Convention to endorse the reversal of a Supreme Court case allowing same-sex marriage. At least nine state legislatures have introduced bills to do the same.
“The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage,” she said. “They’re trying to literally stop it from happening in the future and possibly reverse it. Portia and I are already looking into it, and if they do that, we’re going to get married here.”
Later, in response to an audience question, she added: “I wish we were at a place where it was not scary for people to be who they are. I wish that we lived in a society where everybody could accept other people and their differences.
“So until we’re there, I think there’s a hard place to say we have huge progress.”
However, the younger generation are “more comfortable with it” and are “just kind of fluid”, she added. “So I think the younger generation is going to show us the way.”
‘Does being blunt mean I’m mean?’
After some former workers on her talk show made allegations of a toxic workplace culture, the star – who ended every episode by telling viewers to “be kind to one another” – was dubbed as “mean” in the media.
Following the scandal three producers were sacked amid allegations of misconduct and sexual harassment, and the final season of the show opened with Ellen giving an on-air apology.
She addressed that in her 2024 tour and the accompanying Netflix stand-up special.
“No matter what, any article that came up, it was like, ‘She’s mean’, and it’s like, how do I deal with this without sounding like a victim or ‘poor me’ or complaining? But I wanted to address it.
“It’s as simple as, I’m a direct person, and I’m very blunt, and I guess sometimes that means that… I’m mean?”
She also said it was “kind of crazy” that saying someone is mean “can be the worst thing that you say about a woman”.
“How dare us have any kind of mood, or you can’t be anything other than nice and sweet and kind and submissive and complacent.”
She added: “I don’t think I can say anything that’s ever going to get rid of that [reputation] or dispel it, which is hurtful to me. I hate it. I hate that people think that I’m that because I know who I am and I know that I’m an empathetic, compassionate person.”
It was “certainly an unpleasant way to end” her talk show, she said.
Would ‘love’ a British talk show
Ellen said she misses “a lot” about her show, but doesn’t think a similar format would work any more.
“I mean, I wish it did, because I would do the same thing here. I would love to do that again, but I just feel like people are watching on their phones, or people aren’t really paying attention as much to televisions, because we’re so inundated with with information and entertainment.”
She said she didn’t know what she would do in the future, but would pick her next move “very carefully”.
“I just don’t know what that is yet,” she said. “I want to have fun, I want to do something. I do like my chickens but I’m a little bit bored.”