‘Everything is just better here’: Ellen DeGeneres confirms she moved to the UK because of Trump
Comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres has confirmed she moved to the UK from Los Angeles the day after Donald Trump was re-elected as president.
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DeGeneres told a crowd in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, that “everything is just better [in the UK] in her first public appearance since making the move.
She originally planned to relocate part-time with her partner, Portia de Rossi, but the pair decided to stay in the UK permanently.
DeGeneres, 67, was asked if Trump had motivated her decision to move to Britain at the event at Cheltenham’s Everyman theatre on Sunday, to which she prompt replied: “Yes.”
“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,’” she said.
The former host of the popular self-titled talk show moved to a house in the Cotswolds in 2024 after ending the long-running program amid allegations of workplace bullying and embarked on a “final comedy tour” across the US.
While rumours circulated that Ellen had moved because of the controversial US president winning a second term, she had never shed a light on her decision-making process until now.
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She told the host, Richard Bacon, that her new home was “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 added.
“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 was one of the most recognisable faces on US television for over three decades, known for her chat show, the 1990s sitcom Ellen, hosting several awards ceremonies including the Grammys, Emmys and Oscars, and voicing Dory in Finding Nemo.
She also made history as the first openly gay lead character on a US network television show after coming out on the cover of Time magazine with the iconic words “Yep, I’m gay.”
But her sitcom quickly ended after she came out in 1997, after advertisers pulled out and the network stopped promoting the show.
DeGeneres said being openly gay in show business is “still a problem,” saying that coming out as gay is still “a really hard decision.”
When asked if people felt more encouraged to be openly gay because of her, she replied: "I would say no.”
"I imagined a lot of people coming out like meerkats poking out of a hole and going back in again. 'How's she doing? OK, no, no.'"
"If it was [better], all these other people that are actors and actresses that I know they're gay, they'd be out, but they're not, because it's still a problem. People are still scared."
She also highlighted a current trend in American politics which has seen several states move towards banning same-sex marriage, saying her and her partner may get married again in the UK if the law is changed in the US.
"The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage," she said. "They're trying to literally stop it from happening in the future and possibly reverse it. Portia and I are already looking into it, and if they do that, we're going to get married here."
She later 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."
But younger people are “more comfortable with it” and “are just kind of fluid,” she said, "So I think the younger generation is going to show us the way."
She also addressed the claims about her maintaining a toxic work culture at The Ellen DeGeneres Show and being “mean” behind the scenes, despite telling audiences at the end of every episode to "be kind to one another.”
Three producers were sacked after the scandal amid claims of sexual harassment and misconduct, and Ellen opened the final season of the show by giving an on-air apology.
“No matter what, any article that came up, it was like, 'She's mean', and it's like, how do I deal with this without sounding like a victim or 'poor me' or complaining? But I wanted to address it,” she said.
"It's as simple as, I'm a direct person, and I'm very blunt, and I guess sometimes that means that... I'm mean?"
She added that it was "kind of crazy" that calling someone mean "can be the worst thing that you say about a woman".
"How dare us have any kind of mood, or you can't be anything other than nice and sweet and kind and submissive and complacent."
She added: "I don't think I can say anything that's ever going to get rid of that [reputation] or dispel it, which is hurtful to me. I hate it. I hate that people think that I'm that because I know who I am and I know that I'm an empathetic, compassionate person."
It was "certainly an unpleasant way to end" her talk show, she said.