Ellen DeGeneres was born on January 26, 1958, in Metairie, Louisiana. Her mother Elizabeth was a speech therapist and her father Elliott was an insurance agent. She has a brother named Vance who is a musician and producer. Her parents divorced n 1974 and her mother remarried and moved with her new husband and Ellen from New Orleans to Atlanta, Texas. Ellen graduated from Atlanta High School in 1976 and moved back to New Orleans to attend the University of New Orleans. She dropped out after one semester to take a clerical job at a law firm.
She is best known for the sitcom “Ellen,” which she created and which ran from 1994 to 1998 as well as the syndicated talk show “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” which aired from 2003 through 2021. Her syndicated show made her extraordinarily rich in Hollywood terms. At her peak, Ellen earned around $60 million in salary from the talk show alone.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show debuted, in 2003. Today, it is one of the most-watched talk shows on daytime television. In just its first three seasons, the show won 25 Emmy Awards. Ellen celebrated her 100th episode on May 1, 2009. Her 2000th show was in December 2015.
DeGeneres came out as a lesbian in 1997. That same year, she started dating actress Anne Heche. They dated until August 2000. From 2000 to 2004, DeGeneres was linked to actress Alexandra Hedison. In 2004, she started dating actress Portia de Rossi. They married in August 2008 at their home in Beverly Hills, California.
Ellen and Portia are vegans.
In January 2018, for Ellen’s 60th birthday, Portia de Rossi gifted Ellen a permanent gorilla home in Rwanda built in her name for the Digit Fund. This gift was part of a new arm of the Digit Fund now called the Ellen DeGeneres Wildlife Fund.
