Comedian and former daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres has announced her farewell tour across North America, titled “Ellen’s Last Stand… Up.” This tour marks her return to stand-up comedy following the end of her long-running talk show in 2022. DeGeneres also revealed that she will release a second and final Netflix special before the end of this year, following her 2018 special, “Relatable.”
The tour and the upcoming Netflix special are significant as they represent DeGeneres’ first major public appearances since her talk show ended after 19 seasons. The show concluded amid personal criticism and allegations of a toxic workplace environment that surfaced in the summer of 2020. DeGeneres has already performed “Ellen’s Last Stand… Up” in Los Angeles, where she addressed the controversy and the end of her show, humorously noting that she was “kicked out of show business” for being “mean.”
“The hate went on for a long time, and I would try to avoid looking at the news,” DeGeneres said, according to People. “The ‘be kind’ girl wasn’t kind. That was the headline.”
In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter about her talk show ending in 2022, DeGeneres hinted at the possibility of returning to the stage. “I also love doing stand-up, so I can always write another special and go out and [perform], which is Portia’s preference,” DeGeneres said, referencing her wife, Portia de Rossi. “She really loved when we went out on what she calls ‘a tour.’ She doesn’t understand, we only went to seven cities.”
The full tour schedule for “Ellen’s Last Stand… Up” includes multiple sold-out shows across various cities. Tickets are available through LiveNation.com.
The former talk-show host tackled her public cancellation on the first night of her tour, which she says will be taped for a Netflix special this fall. As she took the stage at the Largo at the Coronet Theater in West Hollywood, DeGeneres was met with roaring applause from a sold-out crowd. Dressed simply in a black long-sleeved shirt, white pants, and sneakers, she addressed the elephant in the room with her first words.
“I used to say that I didn’t care what other people thought of me and I realized…I said that at the height of my popularity,” DeGeneres said, prompting laughter from the audience. “It is such a waste of time to worry about what other people think…Right now I’m hoping you’re thinking, ‘This is marvelous, I’m so happy to be here.’ But you could be thinking, ‘Let’s see how this goes.’”
The last few years have been challenging for DeGeneres. Her public image took a hit in 2020 following reports by BuzzFeed News alleging racism, sexual misconduct, and intimidation by executive producers on her show. Three top producers were fired, and DeGeneres issued an on-air apology, acknowledging her responsibility for the show’s environment. Despite her efforts, the show and her popularity never fully recovered, leading to its end in May 2022.
Since then, DeGeneres has mostly stayed out of the spotlight, except for a 2023 Discovery Channel documentary and some social media activity. “Ellen’s Last Stand… Up” represents her first significant return to public life since the controversy. The tour will culminate with a new Netflix special to be taped this fall.
Her Wednesday night set included material she’s been working on for about six months. She joked about her recent activities, such as gardening, wearing sweatpants, and collecting chickens as pets. However, much of her routine focused on her experience of becoming Public Enemy No. 1, a stark contrast to her previous reputation as a happy-go-lucky talk-show host who ended each episode with the message to “be kind to one another.”
“What else can I tell you?” she mused. “Oh yeah, I got kicked out of show business. There’s no mean people in show business.”
“The ‘be kind’ girl wasn’t kind,” DeGeneres continued. “I became this one-dimensional character who gave stuff away and danced up steps. Do you know how hard it is to dance up steps? Would a mean person dance up steps? Had I ended my show by saying, ‘Go fuck yourself,’ people would’ve been pleasantly surprised.”
DeGeneres seemed to be still processing her experience of the scandal. She said her colleagues at her Emmy-winning talk show felt like family to her, and she had fun playing pranks on them and scaring her guests. She also admitted that she was an immature boss who “didn’t know how to be a boss.”
“I didn’t go to business school. I went to Charlie’s Chuckle Hutt,” DeGeneres joked. “The show was called Ellen and everybody was wearing T-shirts that said ‘Ellen’ and there were buildings on the Warner Brothers lot that said ‘Ellen,’ but I don’t know that that meant I should be in charge.”
She attributed some of the vitriol she faced to sexism, noting that “there are consequences” for not following pre-existing rules and gender roles. Referencing the cancellation of her sitcom in the 1990s after she came out as gay, she added, “For those of you keeping score, this is the second time I’ve been kicked out of show business…Eventually they’re going to kick me out for a third time because I’m mean, old, and gay.”
The end of her talk show was particularly painful for DeGeneres, as it had been her way back to being embraced after her Nineties exile. “I’m giving stuff away…and I danced, then I was mean and they didn’t like me again,” she said. “It’s been such a toll on my ego and my self-esteem. There’s such extremes in this business, people either love you and idolize you or they hate you, and those people somehow are louder.”
As a 66-year-old woman, DeGeneres said she’s also grown increasingly aware of the aging process. She finds herself thinking about existential subjects like time and the universe, and her doctor recently told her she has osteoporosis and arthritis. Plus, she joked, now she’s at a point in her life where she’s obsessing over Wheel of Fortune.
This line of thinking led to poignant moments, as when she mentioned that her mother has dementia and drew a parallel between them, pointing out that they’re both losing a sense of self: The talk show had been DeGeneres’ whole identity and her mother’s identity was being her mother. “And now my mother doesn’t know she’s my mother and I’m trying to figure out who I am without my show.”
At the conclusion of her set, the crowd gave DeGeneres a standing ovation, prompting her to return to the stage for a candid conversation with the audience. DeGeneres called on people one by one as they asked questions and shared messages of gratitude. One same-sex couple said they had gotten married earlier that day and asked for marital advice. DeGeneres’ wife of 16 years, Portia de Rossi, briefly made an appearance onstage during the Q&A, at fans’ request. DeGeneres explained that the last few years had been very tough on de Rossi as well, saying, “We were both just laying low for a while.”
One woman thanked DeGeneres for her original Netflix comedy special because it made her mom laugh when she was diagnosed with cancer. Another woman expressed her thanks to DeGeneres for participating in her autistic daughter’s bat mitzvah. One person who said they’d been inspired by DeGeneres’ positivity asked if she used dancing as a means of escape during her recent tough period.
“No. It’s hard to dance when you’re crying,” DeGeneres replied. “But I am dancing now.”
DeGeneres flashed another moment of sensitivity and bewilderment when a fan asked if her first go-round with public scrutiny after coming out prepared her for the next one, when The Ellen DeGeneres Show collapsed.
“This was a whole different thing,” she replied. “This was like, ‘What is going on?’ It was so hurtful. I couldn’t gain perspective. I couldn’t do anything to make myself understand that it wasn’t personal… I just thought, ‘Well this is not the way I wanted to end my career, but this is the way it’s ending.’”
DeGeneres added that it took her a long time to figure out what she wanted to say on the topic and how she wanted to say it.
“Honestly, I’m making jokes about what happened to me but it was devastating, really,” she said. “I just hated the way the show ended. I love that show so much and I just hated that the last time people would see me is that way.”
The final question of the night came from a woman who asked, “Do you think you’ll seek revenge for those who have wronged you?” After a loud round of applause and cheers from every corner of the room, DeGeneres replied, “I don’t know who wronged me. I don’t even know who these people are, so I can’t seek revenge, but I really don’t hold onto stuff. It’s just not who I am.”
Citing the self-help book “The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom,” DeGeneres explained that she’s made her peace with the fact that everyone has their own reasons for making certain choices and “they have to live with their stuff.”
“I do realize that whatever happens may have nothing to do with me, it’s just somebody else’s stuff,” she said. “So no, I will not [seek revenge].”
Ellen DeGeneres is set to return to Netflix with a new stand-up special, her second for the streamer and what she’s calling her “last special,” later this year.
“To answer the questions everyone is asking me — yes, I’m going to talk about it,” DeGeneres said in a statement. “Yes, this is my last special. Yes, [wife] Portia [de Rossi] really is that pretty in real life.”
Netflix VP of stand-up and comedy formats Robbie Praw added, “There is nobody quite like Ellen. She is a true legend and pioneer in so many ways. We can’t wait to bring fans another one of her hilarious comedy specials later this year.”
The special will be produced by Ben Winston and Fulwell73.
While this will be her second stand-up special for Netflix, it also marks her first special since the 2022 end of her daytime talk show, which came after she faced personal criticism and claims of a toxic workplace in the summer of 2020.
The allegations, initially reported by BuzzFeed News, led to an internal investigation and the dismissal of key executives.
When DeGeneres returned to Ellen after her summer hiatus that fall, she addressed the toxic-workplace claims, saying, “I learned that things happen here that never should have happened. I take that very seriously. And I want to say I am so sorry to the people who were affected.”
Still, as she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021 when she decided to end her show, these claims weren’t the reason she stepped down.
“It almost impacted the show,” she said at the time. “It was very hurtful to me. I mean, very. But if I was quitting the show because of that, I wouldn’t have come back this season. So, it’s not why I’m stopping, but it was hard.”
According to Netflix, DeGeneres is set to kick off a multi-city tour on June 19 in San Diego. But she’s already returned to stand-up, making headlines last month for joking about the toxic-workplace controversy and the end of her show.
During a Los Angeles show called “Ellen’s Last Stand… Up,” DeGeneres joked she was “kicked out of show business” for being “mean.”
She continued to say that she was “the most hated person in America.”
“The hate went on for a long time, and I would try to avoid looking at the news,” DeGeneres said, according to People. “The ‘be kind’ girl wasn’t kind. That was the headline.”
In a Q&A with the audience after her set ended, DeGeneres reflected on what was a rough time for her personally.
“I’m making jokes about what happened to me, but it was devastating,” she said. “It took a long time for me to want to do anything again,” adding that she “hated the way the show ended” because she “loved that show so much.”
When DeGeneres spoke to THR around her talk show ending, she said she would try to “sit still” for a while but indicated she was open to movies and stand-up.
“I also love doing stand-up, so I can always write another special and go out and [perform], which is Portia’s preference,” DeGeneres said in 2022. “She really loved when we went out on what she calls ‘a tour.’ She doesn’t understand, we only went to seven cities.”
Ellen DeGeneres is dancing her way back into the public eye. After about two years out of the spotlight amid toxic-workplace allegations on her daytime talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, she performed a stand-up set at Largo in Los Angeles on Wednesday, April 24, and addressed how she was “kicked out of show business” for being “mean,” according to People.
In June of 2020, DeGeneres was the subject of a BuzzFeed News article that alleged that producers and managers on the Emmy-winning Ellen DeGeneres Show had fostered a toxic workplace, with DeGeneres—who ended every show with the message “be kind”—at the helm. At the time, DeGeneres apologized to staff, and later, on camera, and three senior staff members—head writer Kevin Leman and executive producers Ed Glavin and Jonathan Norman—left the show. In the aftermath of the allegations, the show hemorrhaged viewers. DeGeneres announced in May of 2021 that her show would be coming to an end after 19 seasons.
DeGeneres reportedly said that her new comedy show, “Ellen’s Last Stand… Up Tour,” will be taped for a Netflix special. Per Rolling Stone, DeGeneres did not beat around the bush during her Wednesday performance. “I’ve been kicked out of show business,” she reportedly quipped. “There’s no mean people in show business.” She also joked that she became the “most hated person in America” because of the allegations. “The hate went on for a long time and I would try to avoid looking at the news,” she said, according to People. “The ‘be kind’ girl wasn’t kind. That was the headline.”
Part of the “problem,” DeGeneres added, was that she painted herself into a corner with her public persona. She said that she became a “one-dimensional character who gave stuff away and danced up steps.”
After the show, DeGeneres took questions from the audience and further opened up about that period of her life. She said that her fall from grace didn’t only affect her, it also negatively impacted her wife, Portia De Rossi. “She was watching it happen to me,” DeGeneres reportedly told the audience. “She went through it with me.” When asked if she continued to “dance” after the show went off air, DeGeneres responded, “No…It’s hard to dance when you’re crying.”
During the scandal, DeGeneres admitted, she “had a hard time” and “didn’t get out” much. As for how her show concluded, she said that she “hated the way the show ended” because she “loved that show so much.”
“I’m making jokes about what happened to me, but it was devastating,” she said. “It took a long time for me to want to do anything again.”
Source: People, The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, BuzzFeed News
