Portrait
Ellen DeGeneres
Born
26 January 1958Metairie, Louisiana, USA
Comedian and television hostUnited States

Ellen DeGeneres

A comedian whose public coming out changed the possibilities for gay characters on American television.

Ellen DeGeneres was born in Metairie, Louisiana, in 1958. She began performing stand-up comedy in New Orleans, and an appearance on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” in 1986 helped bring her national attention.

Her sitcom began in 1994 and later took the title “Ellen”. In April 1997 she came out in Time magazine. That month her character also came out in “The Puppy Episode”, watched by more than forty million people. An openly lesbian lead in an American network sitcom was a major departure. The broadcast drew support and hostility, and the series ended the following year.

DeGeneres rebuilt her television career with “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”, which ran from 2003 to 2022 and won numerous daytime Emmys. She also voiced Dory in “Finding Nemo” and its sequel. In 2008 she married Portia de Rossi; in 2016 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Her later public image was complicated by employees’ accounts of a toxic workplace in 2020. She apologised and promised changes. Her influence on LGBTQ visibility remains part of her legacy alongside those criticisms.

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