Ellen DeGeneres has admitted she misses television and is considering working in the UK, while reflecting on the starkly different reactions she received when she came out publicly nearly 30 years ago.
Ellen DeGeneres says she “really misses” being on television — four years after the end of the talk show that made her one of the most recognisable faces in US entertainment.
Appearing on The Graham Norton Show on 16 October, the 68-year-old comedian said her professional life is currently fairly quiet.
“I’ve nothing really going on and I really miss being on TV,” DeGeneres said.
“I miss a lot about it, laughing with the writers and the audience. I think about doing stuff here.”
DeGeneres now lives in the English countryside with her wife, Portia de Rossi, and suggested Britain’s television landscape might offer some possibilities.
“I think it is pretty easy to get on TV here,” she joked.
“You have a pottery show, you have a sewing show, and you even have a show about people watching TV shows.”
Remembering what happened after she came out
The conversation also turned to one of the most consequential moments of DeGeneres’ career.
She publicly came out as gay in 1997, while her sitcom Ellen simultaneously featured a groundbreaking storyline in which her character also came out.
At the time, putting an openly gay lead character at the centre of a US network sitcom was hugely significant — and it came with an enormous backlash.
DeGeneres told Norton that the reaction in Britain felt markedly different.
“In the US they were not very thrilled about my character or me coming out, so for it to be celebrated in London was such an honour,” she said.
“To be treated that way when everyone else was done with me was extraordinary.”
For queer audiences who lived through that period, DeGeneres’ coming-out remains an important part of LGBTQ+ television history.
Her sitcom was cancelled the following year, and DeGeneres has previously spoken about struggling to find work afterwards.
She later rebuilt her career through stand-up, film roles and eventually The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which began in 2003 and ran for 19 seasons.
A complicated television legacy
DeGeneres’ later career became much more complicated.
In 2020, current and former employees of The Ellen DeGeneres Show made allegations about a toxic workplace culture, including bullying, racism and sexual misconduct involving senior staff.
An internal investigation followed, and three executive producers subsequently left the programme.
DeGeneres apologised publicly when the show returned for its 18th season.
“There were allegations of a toxic work environment at our show, and then there was an investigation,” she told viewers at the time.
“I learned that things happened here that never should have happened.”
She said she took the allegations seriously and apologised to people who had been affected.
The controversy damaged the public image DeGeneres had built around kindness and upbeat daytime entertainment.
Her show eventually ended in May 2022.
DeGeneres has maintained that ending the programme was her decision and that she had already reached a point where she wanted a new creative challenge.
From ‘I’m done’ to missing television
Her latest comments are particularly notable because DeGeneres had previously suggested she was finished with show business.
During the promotional run for her 2024 Netflix stand-up special For Your Approval, she jokingly described herself as having been “kicked out of show business” and told audiences the special would be her final major entertainment project.
But since settling in Britain, she has increasingly sounded open to working again.
In 2025, DeGeneres told broadcaster Richard Bacon that she would “love” to make another talk show, though she questioned whether the traditional format still worked in a media environment dominated by phones and fragmented audiences.
Now, her appearance with Graham Norton makes one thing particularly clear: retirement may not feel quite as appealing as it once did.
Still a complicated figure in queer history
For LGBTQ+ audiences, DeGeneres occupies an unusual place.
Her 1997 coming-out was undeniably significant in mainstream television representation, arriving at a time when openly gay leading characters were rare and coming out could still end a performer’s career.
The success she later achieved made her one of the most visible lesbians in global entertainment.
At the same time, the workplace allegations surrounding her talk show profoundly changed how many viewers understood the public persona she had built.
Both parts of that history can be true at once.
Almost three decades after her coming-out reshaped US television, DeGeneres now sounds increasingly interested in discovering whether there might still be another act.
And if British television really does have room for pottery, sewing and watching people watch television, Ellen appears to be wondering whether it might have room for her too.
