'I'd never been bullied until I came out' - Ellen DeGeneres sits down with Attitude

Finding Ellen by Matthew Todd

There’s no doubt that Ellen DeGeneres is the most famous lesbian in the world and perhaps, alongside Sir Elton John, Sir Ian McKellen and Tim Cook of Apple, arguably the most influential gay person on the planet today. Born in 1958, growing up in Louisiana she had a natural warmth and affinity for comedy that caused her to be a hit on the stand-up circuit. An appearance in 1986 on The Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson, saw her become the first female comedian to be asked for a much-coveted “chat on the sofa,” something seen as a signal of impending mega-success.
After appearances in television and film, in 1994 she appeared in a new sitcom called These Friends of Mine, about the life and loves of a neurotic thirty-something bookstore-owning woman called Ellen Morgan. Critics observed that it was similar in tone and warmth to Seinfeld and it was a smash hit. After the first season, it was renamed simply Ellen.

By the late nineties, with all the fame that a hit national TV programme brings, the real Ellen was struggling to keep her homosexuality to herself.
In 1997 she recorded a very special episode of Ellen where the character comes out of the closet as gay. It starred Laura Dern of Jurassic Park fame al as mega-star Oprah Winfrey, who played Ellen’s therapist and who helps her come to terms with herself.

Ellen comes out by telling Dern’s character that she too is gay, accidentally, over an airport tannoy system. It’s a very funny and powerfully moving moment as Ellen made history by becoming the first American sitcom character to come out as gay. Just before the episode aired, DeGeneres came out in real life with an iconic Time magazine cover — that said simply: “Yep, I’m gay” — and an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Today, it may seem like something to which we are accustomed but in America 20 years ago, this was a massively groundbreaking – and controversial – event.

At first triumphant, a significant backlash occurred. Debate raged across the United States about whether Ellen being herself on TV was OK. But instead of cowering away and letting the character be incidentally gay, Ellen committed to furthering her exploration in the show of what it meant to be a lesbian.

Despite an avalanche of pressure, she would not back down or let it go. Difficult to believe as it may be, the ABC network showed a “Parental advisory” warning before each of the following episodes. In the UK, Channel 4 — which broadcast Ellen — was far more supportive, running a special “Coming out party,” where Ellen flew over to attend a live TV party attended by the great, the gay and the good, hosted by young new TV presenter Graham Norton.

British enthusiasm was not enough to turn the tide and a year later, with dwindling audiences, the show was cancelled. Privately, Ellen fell into depression and couldn’t find work for three years. A one-off TV stand-up special from the time shows her expressing, “through interpretative dance” for comic effect, what she had been through.

She begins in a ball, curled up in pain, giving you some idea of how intense the whole experience was. For three years she could not be hired but then salvation came from the ocean.
At the beginning of the millennium, Andrew Stanton, a filmmaker at super studio Pixar hired her to voice a blue fish in an animated feature the studio was making. In 2003 Finding Nemo became one of the biggest cinematic hits in animation history and, through Dory, America reconnected with an artist they instinctively loved. Audiences remembered just how great Ellen was. In September of that year The Ellen DeGeneres Show, a new talk show, began and was a huge hit.

Since then, her career has gone stratospheric. The show has won 25 Emmy Awards, Ellen herself has hosted the Emmys, the Grammy Awards, she has been a judge on American Idol, and, in 2007, she got the biggest gig in television: hosting the Oscars, something she repeated in 2014. Her chat show (often known just as Ellen) now attracts about four million viewers every day, making her one of the most watched people in the US.

In February 2012, interviewing President Obama and thanking him for what he’s done for the gay community, America’s commander-in-chief turned it back on her and said that when it came to changing hearts and minds, he believed no one had been more influential than she.

Now back where she belongs as one of the most successful people in American entertainment history, she stars again as the little blue fish with a memory problem in the sequel to the animated film which put her back on top: Finding Dory. Attitude met her in London for a quick chat.

So next year it’s 20 years since you came out in the famous ‘Puppy episode’ of your show. I remember it very well; the controversy and Channel 4 dedicating a special night to it and how crazy it was.

Yeah. It was my only time in London before this. This is my second time. So that was my first time and it was quite an experience.

That must have been intense.

Yeah!

How is it for you now, looking back at all of that 20 years ago? It was sensitive and painful and controversial and huge in a way that perhaps younger people wouldn’t understand now…

Yeah, it was heightened emotions on every level. It was the highest high and the lowest low and everything that I never really experienced before in my life. I had never felt so proud of myself, I’d never felt so brave. Then I’d never felt so depressed and felt, really, depressed for a long, long time. But it also really made me realise that we’re supposed to be exactly who we are. I was so proud of myself for taking that leap when everyone was telling me not to do it – that I had a career; and I shouldn’t risk it – and it was the best thing that I ever could have done. I get to be on television now every single day as myself. I get to talk about my wife. I get to be exactly who I am and not be ashamed and not be fearful of anything. That’s a pretty great way to live.

You didn’t shy away from it after you came out. You stuck to your guns and talked about issues around being gay and coming out. It was clearly difficult. I remember seeing your TV special after the show was cancelled where you expressed what had happened in a funny way through interpretative dance. You were clearly still in a painful place then. Do you feel the universe has vindicated you now after all this huge success and that the stars have aligned to somehow slot everything into place?

I think the stars always align. Even when I was in that dark place, on that stage in that ball, the stars were aligned for me to go through that. I had to go through that. It’s why I am so strong against bullying right now because I was bullied. You know, I’d never been bullied before. I struggled and I was a stand-up and certainly had had hard nights and, you know, had a lot of shame attached to being gay because society puts that shame on you from an early age, so I had that. But I’d never been attacked verbally by the world. And I was attacked [after she came out] – so I know what bullying feels like. I think it made me more compassionate and it gave me this platform, so I’m going to speak out against bullying and I’m going to stand up for equality and I’m going to stand up for everyone being able to be themselves and authentic. And the stars have certainly aligned. My life could not be better. I’m in a place that I never in a million years could have imaged I would get to, I never thought I would come back, much less come back to this place.

Did you hear about our Prince William cover? It made news in the States.

Yeah it did, I heard that he was on the cover. That was amazing.

Yeah it was great but it was really frustrating too. We took all these LGBT+ people who had experienced negative effects of being bullied but the media just talked about the celebrity aspect of it. They mostly didn’t talk about the bullying which is what we wanted them to focus on. You’ve spoken out consistently on your show about homophobic bullying. Why is that so important for you?

Right after I came out, Matthew Shepard was killed [a young man murdered in a homophobic attack in Wyoming in 1998] and that had such a huge impact. You know when you’re not out you don’t get people writing to you saying thank you, you saved my life, because you’re closeted, but once I was out, I started getting letters from people saying: “you saved my life, I was going to kill myself and then you came out and now you’ve given me hope.’ So I started seeing, wow, by having a face and a presence on television, it helps people. So I thought I was making a difference and then the next thing I heard Matthew Shepard was killed and it… it… destroyed me. I just thought I made a difference. I thought putting a face to this and making people see… they knew me already, I was a comedian and now they know I’m gay and why should that make a difference and then here’s a guy who was killed… it was heartbreaking. I went to Washington and I stood on the steps and sobbed like everybody else.

So I think it was the beginning of me realizing, because I was privileged enough, like I said, I’d never been bullied, people liked me and I was funny, and then I saw this other side of being gay when you’re bullied at school and to the point of even wanting to commit suicide and I saw how prevalent that was. And so it’s important for me to speak up. I wish everybody had the strength and felt good enough about themselves to come out. I wish we had more visibility in every field, not just celebrities but in medicine and education and the law because we need that for kids to see, and parents, to see too so they don’t worry about their kids and make them feel bad about themselves.

How much do you want Hillary to win the election?

More than anything. You know, we can’t afford for her not to win because the alternative would be disastrous. [Pauses] Yeah.

I absolutely loved Finding Dory, it made me cry. You bring a very infectious positivity to what you do and it’s something you’re known for. Has that come from what you went through when you came out?

No I think it’s always been there. I think my stand-up was always positive and you know, not mean-spirited so I don’t think it’s because of that. I think that experience obviously helped build character in other ways but I just am a positive person.

If you could speak to your 15-year-old-self and tell her, cut forward to President Obama saying that it’s because of you that people’s attitudes to homosexuality have changed in America…

Yeah. Amazing, right?

How do you think she would react?

You can’t do that. That 15-year-old girl would be “yeah right!” [Laughs]. Years ago, a psychic told me, when I was in the middle of that three-year “not working, everybody hating me phase,” I was going to start a brand new career when I was 45, that I was going to be more famous than I’ve ever been and I could go for 20 years if I wanted to. I thought, “what sitcom goes 20 years and who starts at 45? I have no money and I’m not getting any job offers.” I didn’t believe her at all. I thought she was crazy! At 45, I started my talk show and everything she said has come true, so you know. So if I went back to my 15-year-old self I would say: you have no idea what life has in store for you. You should just keep swimming.

Finding Dory is in cinemas now.

‘I’d never been bullied until I came out’ – Ellen DeGeneres sits down with Attitude

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