12 hours ago
5
Ellen DeGeneres has confirmed that she moved to the UK because of Donald Trump, saying, “Everything here is just better”.
At a conversation event on Sunday at Cheltenham’s Everyman theatre – the comedian’s first public appearance since leaving the US – broadcaster Richard Bacon asked DeGeneres if it was true Trump had spurred her decision to relocate.
“Yes,” she said. “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.’ And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here.’”
DeGeneres moved with her wife, Portia de Rossi, to a house in the Cotswolds in 2024 after her long-running talkshow ended and she embarked on a “final comedy tour” around the US.
At the time, her move was described as permanent. A source told industry publication The Wrap that DeGeneres was “never coming back” and was motivated by Trump, though DeGeneres herself had not confirmed the reasoning until now.
DeGeneres told Bacon that her new home was “beautiful”.
“It’s clean,” she raved. “Everything here is just better – the way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here.”
She also expressed concern for LGBTQ+ rights in the US, hinting that she and De Rossi may get married again in the UK.
“The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage,” DeGeneres said, referencing an overwhelming vote by southern Baptists in June to endorse a resolution that would seek to overturn same-sex marriage in the US.
“They’re trying to literally stop it from happening in the future and possibly reverse it,” DeGeneres continued. “Portia and I are already looking into it, and if they do that, we’re going to get married here.”
Later in the talk, 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.”
At the event, DeGeneres also addressed the scandal that had dogged the end of her daytime talkshow Ellen after 19 seasons in 2022.
In 2020, former employees accused DeGeneres of fostering a toxic work environment. She apologised to her staff and to the audience, and an internal investigation by parent company Warner led to the departure of three executives – but the show never quite recovered and ended amid declining ratings.
DeGeneres had previously commented on the controversy in her 2024 US tour, saying she was “kicked out of show business” for being “mean”.
On Sunday, she made similar comments on stage. “No matter what, any article that came up, it was like, ‘She’s mean’,” DeGeneres said. “How do I deal with this without sounding like a victim or ‘poor me’ or complaining? But I wanted to address it.”
She said she had been misconstrued. “I’m a direct person, and I’m very blunt, and I guess sometimes that means that ... I’m mean?”
DeGeneres concluded that it was “certainly an unpleasant way to end” her talkshow.
