Ellen DeGeneres has revealed the reason behind her decision to leave the United States - as she is now planning to stay permanently in the United Kingdom with wife Portia de Rossi.
The 67-year-old comedian and former talk show host opened up about her big move during a candid on-stage interview with Richard Bacon at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham over the weekend.
DeGeneres explained that she and Portia arrived in the UK just before the 2024 election, and decided to remain after learning of Donald Trump's victory.
“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.’”
The couple, who first married in 2008, now live in the Cotswolds, and DeGeneres says they’re embracing their new rural life.
“It’s absolutely beautiful. 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,” she said, per The Guardian.
She added, via BBC News: “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.”
DeGeneres also addressed growing political threats to same-sex marriage rights in the US, expressing concern over efforts by the Baptist Church to reverse legal protections.
“They’re trying to literally stop it from happening in the future and possibly reverse it,” she said. “Portia and I are already looking into it, and if they do that, we’re going to get married here [in the UK].”
Reflecting on the broader challenges facing LGBTQ+ communities, she added, per MailOnline: “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.”
DeGeneres, who often shares glimpses of her countryside life on social media, recently posted a photo of a rainbow captured by Portia with the caption: “3 things that make me happy: My Wife A Rainbow And my wife taking a photograph of a Rainbow.”
After her daytime talk show ended in 2022 following allegations of a toxic workplace environment, DeGeneres returned with a 2024 Netflix special For Your Approval, which received largely negative reviews.
Speaking previously to The Hollywood Reporter about the controversy, she said: “It was obviously very, very difficult… I think that I learned a lot… It was eye-opening, but I just trust that that had to happen.”