Ellen DeGeneres Pens Emotional Message After Filming Final 'Ellen' Episode

By Anna Rumer

Ellen DeGeneres is saying goodbye to The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Thursday, the talk show host revealed she had just finished taping the final episode of the 19th and final season, airing May 26, taking to Twitter to share an emotional note about her decades-long run on daytime television. "Today we taped the final episode of The Ellen Show which airs on May 26th," she began.

"When we started this show in 2003, the iPhone didn't exist. Social Media didn't exist. Gay marriage wasn't legal. We watched the world change, sometimes for the better, sometimes not," the comedian continued. "But whatever was happening, my goal was always for the show to be a place where we could all come together and laugh for an hour. Being invited into your lives has been the greatest privilege of my life and has brought me incredible joy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

During Thursday's episode of Ellen, DeGeneres celebrated the 25th anniversary of coming out as gay on her former self-titled sitcom to a live audience. "When I came out, people warned me that it was going to ruin my career, and they were right for a while," she said during her opening monologue. "Actually, for exactly three years, I lost my career. But look at me now."

DeGeneres announced in May 2021 that her talk show would end with its 19th season, telling The Hollywood Reporter at the time that her decision had nothing to do with the toxic workplace scandal that made headlines months prior. "That's been the plan all along. And everybody kept saying, even when I signed, 'You know, that's going to be 19, don't you want to just go to 20? It's a good number.' So is 19," she said.

The scandal surrounding her show was "very hurtful," DeGeneres admitted, adding, "But if I was quitting the show because of that, I wouldn't have come back this season. So, it's not why I'm stopping but it was hard because I was sitting at home, it was summer, and I see a story that people have to chew gum before they talk to me and I'm like, 'Okay, this is hilarious.' Then I see another story of some other ridiculous thing and then it just didn't stop. And I wasn't working, so I had no platform, and I didn't want to address it on [Twitter] and I thought if I just don't address it, it's going to go away because it was all so stupid."

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