Lisa Bernhard

Yep, I'm Back!

A new talk show. A hit movie. A cool girlfriend. Finally, Ellen DeGeneres has something to smile about

By Lisa Bernhard

TV Guide, August 30, 2003

Ellen DeGeneres likes Ping-Pong. And badminton. She likes Justin Timberlake and Oprah Winfrey. And her girlfriend, actress-turned-photographer Alexandra Hedison, is way up there. In fact, there's a whole checklist that we'll just call “Ellen's Good Stuff.” She voiced a little blue fish named Dory in “Finding Nemo,” — stole the movie, in fact — and it blew all other summer box office competition out of the water, becoming the highest-grossing animated film ever. In June, DeGeneres' HBO stand-up special, Here and Now, got stellar ratings. She's cohosting the Emmy Awards on September 21 with fellow comics Garry Shandling and Conan O'Brien, and her second collection of essays, The Funny Thing Is... comes out October 28.

But even with all this good stuff, there's something better happening for Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show, her new daytime gabfest, airs in syndication beginning September 8. DeGeneres says it's her passion, the thing she “eats, sleeps and breathes.”

Before you get too cynical about another celebrity talk show (and really, who could blame you?), DeGeneres promises that this will be a daytime show with a nighttime feel. A DJ spinning, Ellen riffing and lots of guests, celebrity and otherwise. (“Dogs, cats, plants. I'll talk to anything,” she says.”)

Isn't it about time things turned around? For the 12 of you who missed it, DeGeneres, 45, has had a bit of a bumpy ride. Six years ago, during the height of popularity for her sitcom Ellen, Ellen the person and Ellen the TV character both announced they were gay. After coming out, there were out: Ellen was canceled six weeks later, and DeGeneres fell out of favor with many of her fans — in and out of Hollywood. Overlapping, feeding into and perhaps exacerbating all of this was a three-and-a-half year relationship with actress Anne Heche, who seemingly blew in, blew out and left devastation in her wake. (More on that later.)

In 2001, DeGeneres tried to rebuild her career with The Ellen Show, a feel-good comedy about a former dot-com exec who merely happened to be gay. It didn't survive a full season.

But now, here she is, in an office in Burbank, hoping viewers will take her back into their homes. The room is adorned with beautiful oversize photographs taken by Hedison of Buckhead Park in Atlanta and an antique clown painting from actress and clown-art fanatic Diane Keaton. Most notably, there's a photograph of Winfrey guest-starring as a psychiatrist on Ellen. Now Ellen is on Oprah's turf, and it will be up to her to try to kick her idol's butt.

There are so many talk shows. What's special about your show?
I hope people laugh hard and are inspired to understand that you can accomplish anything you want to. And I think that I stand for that without even saying that.
The road is littered with failed talk-show hosts. What made you want to give it a try?
I feel like [I've been] led to this place in such an organic way, and it's at a time in my life where I needed to digest everything that happened to me after I came out. There's a whole group of [fans] that I lost. It was confusing. I didn't know what I did so wrong. And now I can look back and go, “I did some things... I participated.” I also don't regret anything.
What did you do?
I think Ellen changed. I honestly don't think that I was political, [but] the show became about the character being gay, and unfortunately that's political. It was too much too soon, and I understand that. I guess it would've made a difference if I had done things in a different way. But I didn't, and it's OK.
You've been compared to Rosie O'Donnell, for obvious reasons.
It's like comparing two straight people that happen to have the same profession. When she started getting serious and political, she either didn't know any better or she went for it anyway because she's a really strong, outspoken person and doesn't seem to care that much about what people think. But I'm completely opposite of that. I care tremendously what people think, and I learned the hard way. I'm gonna continue to be honest, but at the same time there are certain things that I'm just not gonna engage in on the show. I'm not gonna engage in politics, I'm not gonna start talking about religion. It's an entertainment show. It's not my passion to change the world.
In 2001, you came back to TV with The Ellen Show, which didn't last a full season. What happened?
I thought we had a great cast and it was a great idea, but my passion wasn't in that show. Maybe it was because I wasn't ready.
Three years ago, while you were with Anne Heche, she directed a documentary for HBO about your life on the road doing stand-up. After your breakup, she married the cameraman, Coleman Laffoon. The footage never saw the light of day.
It's burned!
Did you watch it before you burned it?
Yeah, I had borrowed money to make this thing, so I was trying to salvage it. You talk about a bad experience. I mean, everybody has horrible situations in their life. But to sit there and watch, basically, reality TV, real reality TV... I watched until I couldn't watch anymore.
Anne pops up in the tabloids every so often. Do you pick them up or look away?
It's a struggle because it's a weird thing that somebody... I don't know her.
Is that how you feel now?
I felt it since the day she walked out the door. I haven't seen her since. I didn't want to watch the Barbara Walters special [Heche was interviewed September 5, 2001], but it was the only way I was getting information. You think y'all were shocked! I mean, it was horrible. It was hurtful on levels that just kind of... kept unfolding. So I watched out of curiosity, because you just wonder, “What is it in me that I didn't have some kind of indication of something?”
You've been with Alexandra for two years. What made you trust again?
I had a really hard time. But she's an amazing person and she's really grounded, just a very healthy...[jokes] you know, I had her tested.
Anne claimed to have come from another dimension. What about Alex?
[Smiling] I had a lot of psychological tests, and Rorshach and Mensa, a lot of tests. And then I had a lot of my friends meet and evaluate her, and she passed. I was very scared of entering another relationship, so it took us a long time. But as Cher says, “I believe in love after love.” Or, “life after love.” Whatever Cher says, I believe in it.
How did you meet Alex?
Through mutual friends. It was my first night out [after the breakup with Heche]. I literally had been in my house for what seemed like forever, staring at a wall, watching the sun come up and go down. You open your eyes in the morning and you just start crying. So it was my first night out. I looked at her and I thought, “Well, she's easy on the eyes.”
You're wearing a ring that looks like a wedding band. Did you two have a ceremony?
No.
Would you?
I don't know. I'm just in a place right now where I'm very happy. We're both committed, and it's a monogamous relationship. I'm not putting a gown on any time soon. I was shopping for one, and the one I picked out J. Lo had already picked out. So I can't wear that now.
What about having kids?
It's a huge decision that I'm fortunate enough to have time to actually think about. I have a lot of friends that have kids, and they're like, “I'm so glad I did it, because there's no good time and if you really thought about it and planned it out... but it's the best thing I ever did.” I feel that way about my plasma TV. It's the best think I ever did, and I just jumped in and did it and I'm really happy now.
Can you tell us more about what Alex is like?
She has had to deal with a whole lot of...can you imagine living with the ghost of someone that doesn't go away? She's my rock. Again, it's an example of, thank God all of that happened and I was released from that so I could meet her. So when you say, “The road is littered with failed talk-show hosts,” it's like, I have gone through far worse. I'm just gonna jump over those bodies and keep running.