Back in November, we reported that the comedian Ellen DeGeneres had fled America. She then moved across the world to the United Kingdom. DeGeneres has since been laying low in England with her actress wife Portia de Rossi of Arrested Development fame.
Unfortunately for DeGeneres, however, this move is now blowing up in her face. Indeed, it appears that the British locals who call DeGeneres’ new neighborhood home are already starting to turn on her.
DeGeneres’ Move To England Backfires
After DeGeneres and de Rossi fled America, they settled in a $15 million farmhouse in the Cotswolds, a celebrity hotspot. The Cotswolds is a rural area of Southwest England that is located around 100 miles from London.
Other stars who call the Cotswolds home include David and Victoria Beckham, Kate Moss, Patrick Stewart, and Elizabeth Hurley. King Charles himself even owns property in the area.
In August of last year, the British television presenter Jeremy Clarkson opened a pub called The Farmer’s Dog in the Cotswolds. Much to Clarkson’s dismay, this opening quickly turned into a disaster. This ordeal was documented on the season finale of his British reality show Clarkson’s Farm. Now, Cotswolds locals are saying that it’s actually DeGeneres’ fault that Clarkson’s pub opening went off the rails.
On the second day of the opening of Clarkson’s pub, the water mains failed. This forced Clarkson to close both the pub toilets and kitchen. He then had to turn away disappointed customers in droves.
“I was hoping the problem was something trivial. But the plumber quickly realized it was being caused by the village down the hill,” Clarkson lamented in Clarkson’s Farm.
Clarkson’s plumber responded by explaining, “As far as I know, the water pipe comes all the way up the hill from Asthall village.”
“When everyone in the village is turning their water supply on, showers, filling up pots and pans and kettles, it doesn’t then have the oomph to push it up the hill [to the pub],” he continued.
Related: Ellen DeGeneres Admits Her UK Move Hasn’t Gone According To Plan Months After Fleeing America
Locals Blame DeGeneres
A local speaking on condition of anonymity has since spoken out to blame all of this on DeGeneres. It seems that at the time that Clarkson was trying to open his pub, DeGeneres was having her lavish pool refilled at the Cotswolds farmhouse that she was secretly preparing to move into. This local believes that DeGeneres’ 56ft-long pool was emptied, cleaned and refilled.
“It was around the August Bank Holiday weekend [2024] that the swimming pool at the Ellen’s farmhouse was being refilled,” the source told Daily Mail. “Pools of that size filled with normal mains water can take a week to nine days to fill – sometimes even longer depending on the local mains water pressure.”
“If you can imagine having all the taps on to fill the pool, that has to take a lot of water out of the system and Asthall really is just a very small hamlet with a handful of houses,” the insider added. “Then perhaps it is no surprise that Clarkson, with all the water a business like that uses, ran out of water.”
Related: Ellen DeGeneres’ Past Comes Back To Haunt Her After She Flees America To Move To England
DeGeneres Misses ‘Comfort’ Of America
This comes one month after it was reported that DeGeneres and de Rossi were having trouble adjusting to life in the British countryside. After living in sunny Southern California for decades, getting used to the dreary, gray weather of England hasn’t been as easy as they thought it would be.
“It’s been difficult at times because they do miss the comfort of things back in America,” an insider told In Touch Weekly.
Despite this, DeGeneres and de Rossi are still trying to stay positive. The source went on to say that DeGeneres and de Rossi have “navigated plenty of hiccups” over the years. They’ve been together since 2008.
“So they weren’t all that thrown off by the stumbling blocks they’ve faced in the U.K.,” the insider alleged. “They knew going into this that it wasn’t going to be totally smooth sailing. It was always going to be a challenge.”
It seems that the locals turning on them is just another one of these “hiccups.” Only time will tell how much longer DeGeneres and de Rossi are able to “rough it” in rural England. In the end, we wouldn’t be surprised if they come crawling back to America!
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