Ellen DeGeneres Is Officially Ending Her Talk Show

Hedy Phillips
·3 min read
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Ellen DeGeneres Is Officially Ending Her Talk Show
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After almost two decades on the air, Ellen DeGeneres has decided it's time to end her long-running show The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In an announcement from The Hollywood Reporter, the talk show host said the upcoming season—Season 19—will be the last. According to DeGeneres, she felt the time was right to move on.

"When you're a creative person, you constantly need to be challenged—and as great as this show is, and as fun as it is, it's just not a challenge anymore," she told THR.

DeGeneres considered leaving daytime TV a couple years back, according to The New York Times, but ultimately chose to keep going. And while the controversy surrounding behind-the-scenes issues at the show aren't part of DeGeneres's reasoning for deciding to call it quits, it wouldn't be surprising if that played at least a small part in why the show's ending.

DeGeneres maintains that she always planned to end the show after 19 seasons, telling THR, "I was going to stop after season 16. That was going to be my last season and they wanted to sign for four more years and I said I'd sign for maybe for one. They were saying there was no way to sign for one. So, we [settled] on three more years and I knew that would be my last. That's been the plan all along."

Though she did mention that the allegations against her and the show last year really upset her, she said the claims aren't why the show is ending now. The general public, however, hasn't forgiven the host for the accusations lodged against her, not to mention some of the questionable interviews she's done over the years. We recently resurfaced this Taylor Swift interview from 2013 where DeGeneres repeatedly pokes fun at Swift's dating history, visibly making the singer uncomfortable.

Twitter is pretty much collectively praising Dakota Johnson, who famously went toe to toe with DeGeneres in 2019 over the talk show host skipping out on her birthday party.

DeGeneres hasn't said specifically what's coming next for her, though she did tell THR that she'd like to focus more on the causes she cares about, like the environment and animals. So that's, that!