Ellen DeGeneres seems to have it all, including an award-winning daytime talk show in its 15th season, but revealed she was bullied and depressed after coming out.
After DeGeneres, 59, announced she was gay in April 1997, her sitcom Ellen was canceled and she left Hollywood. “The bullying I endured [in Hollywood] after I came out made up for the lack of it during my childhood,” the talk show host told the September issue of Good Housekeeping. “I moved out of L.A., went into a severe depression, started seeing a therapist and had to go on antidepressants for the first time in my life. It was scary and lonely. All I’d known for 30 years was work, and all of a sudden I had nothing. Plus, I was mad. It didn’t feel fair — I was the same person everyone had always known.”
But with exercise and meditation, the Finding Dory star, who married actress Portia de Rossi in 2008, began feeling better. “Eventually I started meditating, working out and writing again, and I slowly started to climb out of it,” she explained. “I can’t believe I came back from that point. I can’t believe where my life is now.”
The two time Oscars host has made peace with her sitcom being canceled and people who criticized her. “I understand it,” the Emmy award winner shared. “I wish it was different. Show business is a business, and what I did was controversial at the time. There were sitcoms before and after mine showing people making out and having sex, and yet my show suddenly got an ‘Adult Content’ warning. Nobody told me that was going to happen. I couldn’t believe it the first time I saw it. It was so insulting! Now, though, when I see those people at functions, there’s definitely an unspoken ‘I made a mistake’ on their part and also an unspoken ‘I accept your apology’ on mine.”
