Ellen DeGeneres

DeGeneres has been married to Australian-American actress Portia de Rossi since August 16, 2008. The couple began dating in December 2004 and married at their home in Beverly Hills after the California Supreme Court overturned the state ban on same-sex marriage. In 2010, de Rossi legally changed her name to Portia Lee James DeGeneres. Prior to her marriage, DeGeneres dated actress Anne Heche from 1997 to 2000 and photographer Alexandra Hedison from 2000 to 2004.

In late 2024, DeGeneres and de Rossi relocated from their residence in Montecito, California, to the Cotswolds region of England. DeGeneres has discussed several health diagnoses in her comedy and public speaking, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and osteoporosis.

DeGeneres began performing stand-up comedy at small clubs and coffeehouses in New Orleans in the late 1970s and early 1980s. By 1981, she was serving as the emcee at Clyde's Comedy Club. In 1982, Showtime named her the Funniest Person in America, which helped launch her onto the national touring circuit. Her observational style, featuring quirky stories, self-deprecating wit, and loose-limbed physical comedy, drew frequent comparisons to Lucille Ball and Bob Newhart.

Her major breakthrough arrived in 1986 on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Following her stand-up set, which included her signature routine "Phone Call to God," Carson invited her over to sit on the couch. The appearance marked the first time in the show's history that a female comedian was called over to sit on the couch during a debut performance, establishing DeGeneres as a regular across the late-night and morning television circuit.

After supporting roles in the sitcoms Open House and Laurie Hill, DeGeneres was cast in the lead role of the ABC sitcom These Friends of Mine in 1994. Renamed Ellen for its second season, the series showcased her observational comedy and earned strong ratings, drawing comparisons to a female counterpart to Seinfeld.

In April 1997, DeGeneres came out publicly on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "Yep, I'm gay." Shortly afterward, her character Ellen Morgan came out to her therapist, played by Oprah Winfrey, in the landmark hour-long broadcast "The Puppy Episode." The broadcast became one of the highest-rated episodes in television history and earned DeGeneres a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. Despite critical acclaim and public support from advocacy groups and her mother, Betty DeGeneres, the show faced sponsor withdrawals and falling ratings in its fifth season, leading to its cancellation in 1998. She later returned to prime-time television in 2001 with CBS's short-lived series The Ellen Show.

In September 2003, DeGeneres launched the syndicated daytime talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Built around celebrity interviews, human-interest segments, giveaways, and opening dance sequences with the audience, the program became a major daytime hit and earned dozens of Daytime Emmy Awards throughout its nineteen-season run. Outside daytime broadcasting, she served as a judge for the ninth season of American Idol in 2010 and created and hosted the prime-time game show Ellen's Game of Games on NBC.

DeGeneres also became one of the most prominent awards show hosts in American broadcasting. She hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards in 2001 following the September 11 attacks, and returned to host the ceremony in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. In 2007, she became the first openly gay person to host the Academy Awards, later returning to host the 86th Academy Awards in 2014. During the 2014 telecast, she organized an all-star celebrity selfie with actors including Meryl Streep, Bradley Cooper, and Julia Roberts, which broke social media records as the most retweeted post in Twitter's history at the time.

In 2003, DeGeneres voiced Dory, a friendly blue tang fish with short-term memory loss, in Disney and Pixar's animated blockbuster Finding Nemo. Director Andrew Stanton created the role specifically with DeGeneres in mind after watching her comedic delivery. Her performance earned her the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, representing only the second time the award was given to a voice acting performance. She reprised the role in the 2016 sequel Finding Dory and signed on to voice the character again for a franchise short film.

Beyond acting, DeGeneres built a media and lifestyle portfolio. She established the television and film company A Very Good Production, launched the music label eleveneleven in 2010, and created the lifestyle and home goods brand ED Ellen DeGeneres. She has also written several humorous essay collections, including My Point...And I Do Have One, The Funny Thing Is..., and Seriously...I'm Kidding, as well as the interior design book Home.

In mid-2020, The Ellen DeGeneres Show came under public scrutiny when former employees made allegations of a toxic workplace environment involving bullying, harassment, and administrative misconduct behind the scenes. WarnerMedia launched an internal investigation, leading to the departure of three senior executive producers. DeGeneres issued written and televised apologies to her staff and audience, addressing the culture of the production during the show's season eighteen premiere.

In May 2021, DeGeneres announced that the show would conclude with its nineteenth season. The final episode aired in May 2022 with guests Jennifer Aniston, Pink, and Billie Eilish. Following a fifteen-year hiatus from stand-up that ended with her 2018 Netflix special Relatable, DeGeneres returned to the stage with her 2024 tour and Netflix special For Your Approval, in which she addressed the fallout from the talk show controversy and announced her intention to step away from show business.