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Television legend Ellen DeGeneres has revealed she decided to leave the United States and settle in the UK after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.
In a candid on-stage interview at Cheltenham’s Everyman Theatre over the weekend, the former talk-show host opened up about her move across the Atlantic and her love for her new home in the English countryside.
Ellen, 66, and her wife Portia de Rossi, 51, now live in the idyllic Cotswolds, which they moved to permanently in late 2023. And she says they have no plans to return to California any time soon.
“We got here the day before the election,” Ellen told broadcaster Richard Bacon. “And we woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, ‘He got in.’ And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here.’”
Ellen and Portia, who married in 2008, were already looking for a change of pace after Ellen stepped away from her long-running daytime talk show in 2022. But she admitted Trump’s win made up their minds.
Now, she says, they’ve fallen completely in love with British life. “It’s absolutely beautiful,” Ellen gushed. “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. It’s clean. Everything here is just better, the way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here.”
Since their move in November, Ellen and Portia have embraced the countryside lifestyle. Portia even brought her horses with her, while Ellen has taken up keeping chickens and, briefly, sheep. “We had sheep for about two weeks,” she laughed.
Ellen DeGeneres and wife Portia de Rossi relocated to the UK last year - Credit: Dave Benett/Getty Images for RH
But the couple’s plans don’t stop there. Ellen also revealed they’re seriously considering renewing their vows and marrying again, this time in the UK, amid fears that gay marriage rights in the U.S. could be under threat.
“The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage,” she explained. “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.”
While Ellen acknowledged that progress has been made, she admitted it’s disheartening to see growing hostility towards the LGBTQ+ community back home. “I wish we were at a place where it was not scary for people to be who they are,” she said. “I wish that we lived in a society where everybody could accept other people and their differences. So until we’re there, I think there’s still a hard road ahead.”
