Why I moved to the UK — Ellen DeGeneres

American TV host, Ellen DeGeneres, has confirmed she relocated to the UK following Donald Trump’s re-election as U.S. president, saying the decision was made the very next day.

Speaking at an event in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, the 67-year-old comedian and talk show host said life in the UK feels “simpler” and “just better” compared to the U.S., praising the country’s charm, cleanliness, and polite culture.

Ellen was one of the biggest names on US TV for 30 years, thanks to her daytime chat show, as well as for her self-titled 1990s sitcom, for hosting the Oscars, Grammys and Emmys, and for voicing Dory in Finding Nemo.

After her talk show was cancelled, Ellen DeGeneres went on a “final stand-up tour” in the US in 2024, then bought a house in the Cotswolds, a historic and picturesque area mainly spanning parts of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire.

On Sunday at the Everyman theatre in nearby Cheltenham, she was in conversation with broadcaster Richard Bacon, who asked whether reports that she moved because of Donald Trump were correct. “Yes,” she replied.

Ellen DeGeneres said she and De Rossi had initially planned to spend three or four months a year in the UK and bought what they thought would be “a part-time house”.

“We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, ‘He got in’,” she said. “And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here’.”

The Ellen DeGeneres Show started in 2003 and was cancelled in 2022

She has been giving glimpses of her new rural life on social media, in videos showing her farm animals, including sheep, although they have now been sold because they kept escaping.

On life in the UK, Ellen DeGeneres said, “It’s absolutely beautiful. We’re just not used to seeing this kind of beauty. The villages and the towns and the architecture, everything you see is charming, and it’s just a simpler way of life.

“It’s clean. Everything here is just better, the way animals are treated, and people are polite. I just love it here.

“We moved here in November, which was not the ideal time, but I saw snow for the first time in my life. We love it here. Portia flew her horses here, and I have chickens, and we had sheep for about two weeks.”

On her last tour, she joked that she had been “kicked out of show business twice”, the first time being when she came out as gay in 1997.

That effectively led to the end of her sitcom after advertisers pulled out and the network stopped promoting it, she told the Cheltenham crowd on Sunday.

Asked whether her visibility had encouraged other people to come out. “I would say no,” she replied. “I imagined a lot of people coming out like meerkats poking out of a hole and going back in again. ‘How’s she doing? OK, no, no.'”

But it is “a really hard decision” that doesn’t suit everyone, she continued, and said things are better today “in some ways” but not others.

“If it was [better], all these other people that are actors and actresses that I know they’re gay, they’d be out, but they’re not, because it’s still a problem. People are still scared.”

Ellen also referenced a recent move by the Southern Baptist Convention to endorse the reversal of a Supreme Court case allowing same-sex marriage. At least nine state legislatures have introduced bills to do the same.

She said, “The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage. They’re trying to literally stop it from happening in the future and possibly reverse it. Portia and I are already looking into it, and if they do that, we’re going to get married here.”

Later, in response to an audience question, she added: “I wish we were at a place where it was not scary for people to be who they are. I wish we lived in a society where everyone could accept others and their differences.

Ellen and Portia, who married in 2008 after same-sex marriage became legal in California, remain vocal advocates for LGBTQ+ rights. Ellen told the audience she hopes for a world where people can live openly and without fear. “I wish we lived in a society where everybody could accept other people and their differences,” she added.

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