Ellen DeGeneres has revealed how a short stay in the U.K. unexpectedly turned into a permanent move after President Donald Trump was elected.
The talk show host said she and her wife, actress Portia de Rossi, originally planned to spend at most a third of the year in the English countryside after purchasing a home there in 2024.
But the morning after the U.S. presidential election, the “part-time house” transformed into their full-time refuge.
“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,’” DeGeneres told broadcaster Richard Bacon at an event on Sunday, according to BBC. “And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here.’”
Then-President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Ellen DeGeneres in 2016. Alex Wong/Getty Images
DeGeneres, whose talk show ended after almost 20 years in 2022 amid accusations that she fostered a toxic workplace environment, said life “is just better” in the U.K.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” she said in what was her first public appearance since moving across the pond. “We’re just not used to seeing this kind of beauty. The villages and the towns and the architecture—everything you see is charming and it’s just a simpler way of life.”
She added, “It’s clean. Everything here is just better—the way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here.”
DeGeneres and de Rossi recently traded the $18 million mansion in south-central England that they moved into in November for a similarly priced estate close by, according to Daily Mail.
Just before making the move to England, DeGeneres reportedly sold her Carpinteria, California home for $96 million. In March, she reportedly sold her bungalow in Montecito, Calif. for $5.2 million.
Despite seeking refuge from the Trump administration, Vice President J.D. Vance is reportedly planning a vacation to her new neighborhood this August.
DeGeneres, who once said Trump was “against everything that I stand for,” cheered on fellow comedian Rosie O’Donnell, who also fled America in the wake of the 2024 election, in her recent clash with the president.
“Good for you,” DeGeneres captioned a carousel of screenshots showing the now-Ireland-based O’Donnell firing back against the president’s threats.
DeGeneres, who came out as gay in 1997, said that she and de Rossi were considering getting married again in the U.K. and slammed efforts to ban gay marriage again in the U.S.
“I wish we were at a place where it was not scary for people to be who they are. I wish that we lived in a society where everybody could accept other people and their differences,” she said.
Ellen DeGeneres poses with her wife Portia DeRossi. Dave Benett/Getty Images for RH
DeGeneres also spoke about claims that she was “mean”—a label that stuck after ex-employees described The Ellen DeGeneres Show as a “toxic workplace” in 2020. Three senior producers were fired and DeGeneres made an apology before the show was taken off the air.
“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 said, adding that it was “kind of crazy” that saying someone is mean “can be the worst thing that you say about a woman”.
“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,” she continued.
“I don’t think I can say anything that’s ever going to get rid of that [reputation] or dispel it, which is hurtful to me. 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.”