When “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” premiered in 2003, its titular host was in the midst of winning a fight to save her career. These days, Ellen DeGeneres is still dogged by accusations that her workplace wasn’t as happy behind the scenes as it seemed on TV. However, in the early years, her reputation as her boss had nothing to do with why she was receiving negative press.
Shortly after the talk show’s debut in 2003, The Boston Globe noted how DeGeneres not only played on then-girlfriend Anne Heche’s media antics for years, but also fell victim to didactic ways in her titular 1990s sitcom. But “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” was an instant hit, even earning DeGeneres the honor of being named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainers of the Year. “It took me a while to get back to normal, but I was able to do it,” she told the magazine. “It’s been very rewarding.”
In its review of the show at the time, The Boston Globe also chided DeGeneres, not for coming out as gay on the cover of Time magazine in 1997, but for changing her comedic tone to a more serious one afterwards. However, in his emotional final monologue, DeGeneres spoke from the heart about those same issues.
Ellen DeGeneres observed how much times have changed
In her final monologue, Ellen DeGeneres discussed how difficult it was initially to get stations to air “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” because she had come out as gay. She also told her audience, “When we started this show, I couldn’t say ‘gay’ on [air].”
In 2005, DeGeneres made her red carpet debut with her wife Portia de Rossi. But even then, DeGeneres couldn’t openly talk about the love of his life on his own show. “He couldn’t say ‘we’ because that implied he was with someone. I sure couldn’t say ‘wife,’ and that’s because it wasn’t legal for gays to get married,” DeGeneres recalled. Despite that, in 2008, De Rossi appeared on the show for the first time, seven months after she and DeGeneres were married. “I have to say it was the happiest day of my life,” de Rossi said of her wedding.
DeGeneres continued her monologue by saying, “25 years ago they canceled my sitcom because they didn’t want a lesbian to be in primetime once a week, and I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll be in daytime every day, how about that? ? ‘” But those days are over, and fans found it hard to say goodbye. “This is the end of an era. There will be a huge void on television that no one else can fill,” one viewer said. he tweeted . “So bittersweet,” another wrote . “Thank you for all the memories and thank you for changing lives!”