Ellen DeGeneres confirms she moved to the UK because of Donald Trump
Comedian Ellen DeGeneres has confirmed she fled the United States for the United Kingdom due to Donald Trump‘s return to office.
Along with her wife, Portia de Rossi, DeGeneres moved to the Cotswolds in the UK last November after she completed her final stand-up comedy tour. The switch also came after her long-running talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, was cancelled in 2022 following allegations that it was a toxic workplace, which led to three producers being fired.
Since moving to the UK, DeGeneres has kept a low profile away from the spotlight. However, on July 20th, she appeared at Cheltenham’s Everyman for a Q&A with broadcaster Richard Bacon.
Bacon quizzed DeGeneres whether her move was motivated by Trump, to which she replied, “Yes”. The comic recalled, “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’s very content with her new life in the Cotswolds, stating that her house is “beautiful” and told those in the crowd, “Everything here is just better – the way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here.”
DeGeneres also expressed her fears for LGBTQ+ rights in the United States, stating, “The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage.” She added: “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.”
Later in the conversation, DeGeneres discussed the elephant in the room and spoke about the cancellation of her talk show. “No matter what, any article that came up, it was like, ‘She’s mean’,” DeGeneres said of the scandal that engulfed the programme, per The Guardian. “How do I deal with this without sounding like a victim or ‘poor me’ or complaining? But I wanted to address it.”
She added: “I’m a direct person, and I’m very blunt, and I guess sometimes that means that … I’m mean.” DeGeneres also admitted it was “certainly an unpleasant way to end” the show after 19 seasons.
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