The boorishness of Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen DeGeneres, the former queen of American daytime television, says she escaped the social turmoil of the United States by finding a $29 million farmhouse in the English countryside.

And she would very much like the rest of us to take note. She and her wife, Portia de Rossi, reportedly arrived in Britain the day before the 2024 US election. When the results came in, accompanied, she says, by a flood of sad-face-emoji-laden texts from anxious friends, the couple made their decision: they wouldn’t be going back.

Now they’re happily settled in the Cotswolds, that beautiful part of southern England where celebrities, rockstars and former politicians play out their fantasies of rural living. Ellen and Portia have chickens to tend, lawns to tend to, and apparently snow outside to make them feel cosy in winter.

From this new pastoral perch, DeGeneres has begun offering reflections on her adopted country. She claims in all seriousness that “everything here is just better.” In the United States, she says, “I just feel like there’s such a divide right now. . . . There’s such an intolerance, and there’s so much hate.”

DeGeneres casts herself as a sort of progressive refugee, someone forced abroad by the rising tides of American bigotry. But it’s a story that’s difficult to square with the facts. For two decades, Ellen DeGeneres wasn’t merely tolerated in American culture. She was celebrated, empowered and massively enriched by it. She was a fixture of daytime TV and a gay icon whose net worth soared to more than half a billion dollars. 

DeGeneres didn’t flee oppression. She fled embarrassment. Her public image began to unravel in 2020, when former staffers from The Ellen DeGeneres Show accused her of fostering a toxic workplace culture. Reports described an environment rife with bullying and intimidation – a striking contrast to her brand’s “be kind” mantra.

DeGeneres responded with a soft-focus apology, claiming she was “blunt” and “direct,” and wondering aloud if that made her “mean.” But her show lost viewers, the press turned on her and by 2022, she was off the air.

DeGeneres has since attempted a full rebrand. Gone is the dancing, pastel-clad talk show host. In her place: the world-weary expat with muddy boots, grumbling about polarization while sipping tea by a centuries-old fireplace. “I’m loving the simplicity,” she tells one outlet. “It’s just Portia and me and the animals.”

Her “epiphany” conveniently doubled as an escape from an election she didn’t like and a country that had fallen out of love with her. This is what Hollywood calls activism: when democracy produces results that feel uncomfortable, don’t engage. Just leave. For elites like DeGeneres, civic duty is optional. If things don’t go your way, there’s always another country to buy into. And this particularly smug brand of disengagement carries a quiet rebuke: if you’re not fleeing America, maybe you’re part of the problem. Maybe you just don’t care enough.

Of course, the England that DeGeneres has “discovered” bears little resemblance to the real thing. Her corner of the Cotswolds is a rural Disneyland populated by oligarchs, celebs, and financiers in cashmere. There are no trade-offs here, only upgrades, and very expensive pubs.

“I am a little bit bored,” she admits. “I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.” Her days, she says, are filled with gardening jobs and building chicken coops. “We’re gonna get more animals . . . we’ve got bees now,” she reveals.

In the end, Ellen DeGeneres hasn’t made a bold political statement. Her move says nothing meaningful about America, and everything about pampered progressivism. Ellen DeGeneres didn’t flee fascism. She bought a mansion in the countryside. She has confused a retreat to luxury for virtue and boredom for bravery.