Former talk show host Ellen DeGeneres confirmed what many had suspected, stating that the re-election of President Donald Trump prompted her move to the United Kingdom.
The 67-year-old comedian confirmed it on Sunday while speaking with British broadcaster Richard Bacon at an event in Cheltenham. When asked if rumors about her and wife, Portia de Rossi, leaving the United States due to the election results were accurate, DeGeneres said, “Yes,” according to the BBC.
“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 talk show host also raved about her new home.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” DeGeneres said at the event. “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,” she added. “Everything here is just better … the way animals are treated, 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.”
When asked about being openly gay in Hollywood, the comedian said it’s “still a problem.”
“People are still scared,” DeGeneres said of other public figures coming out.
During the conversation, she also mentioned the fallout from being called “mean” and accused of creating a toxic work environment on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
“I don’t think I can say anything that’s ever going to get rid of that [reputation] or dispel it, which is hurtful to me. I hate it,” she said, per the outlet. “I hate that people think that I’m that because I know who I am and I know that I’m an empathetic, compassionate person.”
DeGeneres mentioned the possibility of doing a British talk show, but said she would choose her next project carefully.
“I just don’t know what that is yet,” she said. “I want to have fun, I want to do something. I do like my chickens but I’m a little bit bored.”