In November of last year, 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.
Now, DeGeneres’ fellow residents in the rural British area known as the Cotswolds are speaking out to reveal new details about her “small village” life.
DeGeneres’ New Life In England
Insiders are claiming that DeGeneres, 67, and de Rossi, 52, are loving their new life in England.
“They come in regularly, they are really chilled and very polite,” a local pub source near Wigginton told People Magazine. “They come in with their dogs, sometimes on their own and sometimes with other people.”
“One time, they asked to sit at the corner table presumably as it’s a bit more private,” the insider recalled. The source added of DeGeneres, “Everyone knows who she is, but they don’t bother her.”
DeGeneres and de Rossi’s move made headlines around the world. Despite this, according to the insider, locals “all just respect their privacy.”
“[Ellen’s] so nice and very down to earth,” the source continued. “It’s a small village so of course everyone gossips, but I haven’t heard a single bad thing.”
Another insider chimed in to say that DeGeneres and de Rossi “were [at our pub] for about an hour or so last year and were discreet. They had a drink and left, no fuss.”
DeGeneres Reveals Why She Left America
Back in July, DeGeneres was asked if her move to England was related to Donald Trump’s presidential victory in the U.S. last November.
“Yes,” DeGeneres replied.
DeGeneres went on to say that they “got here the day before the election.” According to DeGeneres, she and her wife “woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, ‘He got in.’ … And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here.’”
“We moved here in November, which was not the ideal time, but I saw snow for the first time in my life,” the former California resident stated. “We love it here. Portia flew her horses here, and I have chickens, and we had sheep for about two weeks.”
DeGeneres described the English countryside as being “absolutely beautiful.” She also claimed that she and de Rossi are enjoying “just a simpler way of life.”
DeGeneres and her neighbors may be claiming that she loves the Cotswolds. However, other sources have alleged that DeGeneres is aching to relaunch her entertainment career.
“They’ve been making a big show of how much they love life in the Cotswolds, but it’s an open secret that Ellen is champing at the bit to get her career back on track,” an insider alleged last month. “She’s been hitting up her contacts and feeling quietly confident, especially with all the talk about Kelly Clarkson stepping down from her daytime show to focus on her music career.”
This may be easier said than done, however, given how unpopular DeGeneres has become in Hollywood in recent years.
DeGeneres’ Toxic Workplace Scandal
The Ellen DeGeneres Show aired in the United States from 2003 until 2022. For much of that time, DeGeneres was known as the “Queen of Nice.” She even ended each episode by telling her audience to “be kind” to one another.
That all changed in 2020, when DeGeneres’ toxic workplace scandal broke. It was then that DeGeneres was accused of presiding over a set that was rampant with bullying, racism, and sexism. This caused DeGeneres’ reputation to plummet in the United States. It also played a huge role in DeGeneres and de Rossi fleeing America for England in November of 2024.
In the years since her talk show went off the air, DeGeneres has complained that she was “kicked out of show business” for being “mean.”
“The hate went on for a long time. And I would try to avoid looking at the news,” DeGeneres claimed last year. “The ‘be kind’ girl wasn’t kind. That was the headline.”
This undoubtedly played a major role in DeGeneres fleeing the country at the end of 2024. Indeed, she can pretend it was about Trump all that she wants to, but her negative reputation was likely the bigger factor.
“Ellen really felt she had made her mark on the industry. But that was diminished when she was canceled over her alleged treatment of her staff,” a source told Daily Mail back in November. “Then to have celebrities call her out one by one was so hurtful.”
‘A Sad End’ For DeGeneres
The insider went on to say that the “all the ill will towards” DeGeneres in America partly led to her decision to leave the country.
“She has the one person that still loves her, Portia, and she is ready to leave everyone who in her mind left her hanging out to dry. If she considers it her retirement, so be it,” the source continued. “An enormous part of the U.S. doesn’t like her because of her sexual preferences. And others were turned off by her persona, which some perceived to be fake in the wake of the work place allegations.”
“For Ellen, it’s easier to move away from her problems than to confront them,” this insider concluded. “It seems like a sad end to what she once was in people’s minds.”
Given the backlash that she’s received for allegedly treating people badly in the past, DeGeneres will undoubtedly be relieved that her new neighbors in England are saying positive things about her in the press. Only time will tell if DeGeneres’ move to England will be permanent, or if she’ll come crawling back to America!