Ellen DeGeneres has revealed that she made a permanent move to the UK because of Donald Trump‘s re-election.
Last year, it was reported that the US comedian and talk show host had relocated to England with wife Portia de Rossi following last year’s election, which saw the former Republican President return to the White House.
Speaking in Cheltenham (via BBC News), DeGeneres confirmed that that reports about the reasons were correct, having initially planned to only spend part of each year in the UK after buying a house in the Cotswolds.
“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’,” she recalled. “And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here’.”
During the chat, the comedian revealed that she and de Rossi are considering getting re-married in the UK amid concerning steps in the US to reverse same-sex marriage.
“The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage,” she noted. “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.”
DeGeneres hosted her talk show in the US before it came to an end in 2022 following reports of a “toxic work environment”. The host later apologised, saying: “Things happened here that should never have happened,” while she released a Netflix comedy special last year that was widely panned by critics.
Addressing the backlash in the new discussion, DeGeneres said: “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. 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 further said that it was “kind of crazy” that calling a person mean “can be the worst thing that you say about a woman”, adding: “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.”
DeGeneres admitted that she doesn’t think she “can say anything that’s ever going to get rid of that [reputation] or dispel it”, which she finds “hurtful”.
“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.”
