Ellen DeGeneres Is Leaving Hollywood Before It Kicks Her Out Again: ‘After My Netflix Special, I’m Done’

Ellen DeGeneres had already experienced being ousted from the entertainment business before her daytime television empire crumbled following allegations that she fostered a toxic work environment. During a recent stop on her comeback (and farewell) tour, Ellen’s Last Stand… Up, she counted coming out as a lesbian in 1997 as the first strike. “Next time, I’ll be kicked out for being old,” she joked. “Old, gay, and mean, the triple crown.” Except, there won’t be a next time. DeGeneres is planning on leaving Hollywood before it kicks her out again.

“This is the last time you’re going to see me,” she told the audience during a Q&A session in San Fransisco. “After my Netflix special, I’m done.” The special, announced in mid-May, will arrive on the streaming platform later this year. It will mark her first since 2018’s Relatable and her biggest public address since The Ellen DeGeneres Show ended in 2022 after 19 seasons. In a statement shared with the announcement, she noted: “To answer the questions everyone is asking me, yes, I’m going to talk about it.”

DeGeneres has been talking about it during each stop on her tour, which began in June, and saw a number of scheduled dates cancelled last week without explanation. “Let me catch you up on what’s been going on with me since you last saw me,” she said in a running bit on the road. “I got chickens. Oh yeah, and I got kicked out of show business for being mean.”

During the performance, DeGeneres owned up to being “demanding and impatient and tough” but maintained: “I am many things, but I am not mean.” From her perspective, to be mean is to have acted with malice.

In 2020, Buzzfeed News published a series of reports that counteracted this ideology and positioned the talk show host as one part of a much larger problem. Across the reports, multiple employees alleged racism, sexual misconduct, and intimidation at the hands of executive producers. Three top producers were fired in the fallout, and DeGeneres issued an on-air apology.

In 2021, DeGeneres told The Hollywood Reporter that the allegations “almost impacted the show,” but ultimately weren’t the reason she was ending Ellen: “[I]f I was quitting the show because of that, I wouldn’t have come back this season.”