Ellen DeGeneres is set to take her final bow as a daytime television host.
As announced this week, DeGeneres will host her last episode of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on May 26. According to a presse release, numerous former guests and DeGeneres favorites will appear in the lead-up to that finale, including Jennifer Garner, Channing Tatum, Serena Williams, Zac Efron, Adam Levine, Behati Prinsloo, Gwen Stefani, David Letterman, Diane Keaton, Kim Kardashian, former First Lady Michelle Obama, and Portia de Rossi, DeGeneres’ wife.
After DeGeneres departs her eponymous show, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” will continue with guest hosts, special compilation episodes, and plain old reruns throughout the summer months as it airs in syndicated markets, the press release noted.
All told, DeGeneres has spent 19 years as host of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” The first episode of the show premiered on September 8, 2003, and since then, the program has gone on to win 64 Daytime Emmy Awards. By the time she signs off, DeGeneres will have hosted more than 3,200 episodes and spoken to over 4,000 celebrities and guests.
DeGeneres announced last year that she was calling it quits on her daytime television empire. “When you’re a creative person, you constantly need to be challenged — and as great as this show is, and as fun as it is, it’s just not a challenge anymore,” DeGeneres told The Hollywood Reporter in May 2021. Her decision came in the wake of falling ratings and a workplace scandal that enveloped the show in the summer of 2020. At the time, current and former employees alleged in a series of BuzzFeed News articles that “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” was a toxic work environment.
When DeGeneres returned that fall for her 18th season, the host addressed the allegations and apologized. “As you may have heard, this summer there were allegations of a toxic work environment at our show, and then there was an investigation. I learned that things happened here that never should have happened,” she said at the time. “I take that very seriously, and I want to say I am so sorry to the people who were affected. I know that I’m in a position of privilege and power, and I realized that with that comes responsibility. And I take responsibility for what happens at my show. This is ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show.’ I am Ellen DeGeneres. My name is there, my name is there, my name is on underwear. We have had a lot of conversations over the last few weeks about the show, our workplace, and what we want for the future. We have made the necessary changes and today we are starting a new chapter.”
Asked last year if she was leaving because of the blowback to that scandal, DeGeneres said it wasn’t a driving factor.
“It almost impacted the show. It was very hurtful to me. I mean, very,” she told THR last year. “But if I was quitting the show because of that, I wouldn’t have come back this season.”
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