Ellen DeGeneres Says Gay in Emotional Farewell Monologue
to an end. The eponymous talk show of lesbian comedian Ellen DeGeneres broadcasted its last episode Thursday after 19 seasons.In her opening monologue, DeGeneres detailed the difficulty she had in selling the show to stations following her coming out several years prior.“Twenty years ago when we were trying to sell the show, no one thought that this would work.
Not because it was a different kind of show, but because I was different,” she explained. “Here we are 20 years later celebrating this amazing journey together.”DeGeneres told the audience how she had to follow certain rules at the very beginning, including not being allowed to say gay.“I was not allowed to say 'gay.' I said it at home a lot.
Like, you know, 'what are we having for our gay breakfast' or 'pass the gay salt? Has anyone seen the gay remote?' Things like that, but we couldn't say 'gay,'” she said, adding, “I couldn't say 'we' because that implied that I was with someone sure; couldn't say 'wife' and that's because it wasn't legal for gay people to get married — and now I say wife all the time.”In her monologue, DeGeneres also quipped about why the show was hard to get sold in the first place.“Twenty-five years ago, they canceled my sitcom because they didn't want a lesbian to be in primetime once a week, and I said okay, then I'll be on daytime every day.
How about that?”In a recent interview with The Advocate, DeGeneres explained, “No one was hiring me for those years, and when the offer to do a talk show popped up, I wasn’t immediately thrilled about doing a talk show, to be honest.
