Ahhh, good old Ellen DeGeneres.
We're not really sure how to start her introduction because the past couple of years have been
a pretty bumpy ride for the TV host.
She went from being one of the most beloved TV Presenters to, well … one of the most
hated.
Whether it was her tackless message to her followers during lockdown where she claimed
that self-isolating in her mansion was 'like being in jail'.
Or the Twitter thread asking for stories about DeGeneres being 'one of the meanest people
alive' receiving more than 2,000 responses.
It seems as though the comedian has had to trudge through some pretty muddy waters lately.
But Ellen is no stranger to a scandal.
She might be happily married to Portia de Rossi now, but the journey to finding the
love of her life was fueled by loss, guilt, and shame.
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In 1980, a 22-year-old DeGeneres was living in New Orleans with her 23-year-old girlfriend,
Kat Perkoff.
Unfortunately, the couple was going through a pretty tough time, allegedly because Kat
had been unfaithful.
She had temporarily moved out so that Ellen could have some time to gather her thoughts.
She knew she didn't want things with Kat to be over, but she knew she needed a bit of
space to lick her wounds before they got back together.
So, one night when they had gone to watch Ellen's brother's band perform at a concert,
Kat asked her if they could talk after the performance.
DeGeneres pretended she couldn't hear her and didn't respond.
Perkoff, feeling rejected, decided to leave the event and go home.
What Ellen didn't know was this was the last time she would ever see her girlfriend alive.
At the end of the evening, DeGeneres headed home as well.
On the drive, she saw a car that had broken apart in a crash but didn't stop at the accident
site.
She could hear sirens, so she knew that emergency services were already on their way, so she
didn't think of stopping to offer any help.
The following morning, Ellen got a phone call that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Kat had been tragically killed in a car accident.
The very same accident she saw while she was on her way home.
The loss of her girlfriend completely shattered Ellen's world.
She couldn't stop replaying their last interaction with one another.
How she had blatantly ignored Kat that evening because she was still upset with her.
How they had left that evening with sour feelings.
How she would never be able to tell Kat that she loved her and she had forgiven her.
On Oprah's Master Class, DeGeneres admitted that she felt guilty wondering if her girlfriend's
deadly ride could have been prevented if the two had been together or if she should have
stopped at the scene of the accident.
What made things even more difficult, DeGeneres was not public about her sexuality in 1980
- she only came out 17 years later - So no one really knew how close the pair really
were.
Rather than say that Kat was her girlfriend, she had told everyone that she was just her
"best friend."
Talking to Terry Gross on Fresh Air in 2002, she said of the situation, "It was hard also
because I didn't really get to grieve or acknowledge how devastating that was for me."
It was only after she came out that she was able to be more truthful about this episode
of her life and how it had impacted her.
On Oprah's Master Class, DeGeneres stated, "I think it made me realize how fragile and
how easily you can lose somebody.
Literally, in an instant, she just was gone.
And it was really hard, but it shifted my entire focus and my life."
Another result of her tragic loss, DeGeneres had to move out of their apartment.
She couldn't afford the rent without Kat, so she had to find another place to stay.
She ended up in a rundown basement that was overrun by millions of fleas.
DeGeneres told The New York Times in 1994.
"I'm laying on the floor, wide awake, thinking, 'Here's this beautiful girl, 23 years old,
who's just gone.
So I started writing what it would be like to call God and ask why fleas are here and
this person is not."
Though DeGeneres had never written a comedy skit before, this sketch flowed out of her,
and it was going to be the performance that completely changed her career.
In 2018, on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast, DeGeneres said, "It just unfolded,
I just wrote the entire thing and when I finished, I read it and I thought, 'Oh my God, that's
hilarious.
I'm going to do this on Johnny Carson and I'm going to be the first woman in the history
of the show to be called over to sit down.'"
"Phone Call to God" helped DeGeneres win a Showtime contest in 1982 that awarded her
the title "Funniest Person in America."
In 1986, she got to perform the skit as part of her stand-up routine on "The Tonight Show
Starring Johnny Carson."
At the time, a spot on Carson's show was a comedian's dream come true.
And it was a particular honor to be invited by Carson to join him on the couch after the
performance instead of having to retreat backstage after the set.
When DeGeneres finished her act, she looked over to see that her prediction had come true:
Carson was signaling for her to come over to the couch.
She was the only female comedian to receive that invite during a first appearance on the
show.
After The Tonight Show, DeGeneres was soon acting on sitcoms.
In 1994 she became the star of her own sitcom, Ellen (originally titled These Friends of
Mine), famously coming out in an April 1997 episode.
After the boundary-breaking announcement of her sexuality, she had her new girlfriend
Anne Heche by her side through it all.
It was an incredibly difficult time for the comedian, considering The Ellen Show was canceled
just one year after her coming out, plunging the star into a deep depression.
Ellen and Anne were the most famous same-sex couple in the world.
Then they split, and the same day, Heche suffered a psychotic breakdown.
Heche was battling mental health issues long before she met DeGeneres.
She has said she was sexually abused by her father from the time she was a toddler, and
that abuse triggered her mental illness.
"I had a fantasy world that I escaped to.
I called my other personality Celestia.
I believed I was from that world.
I believed I was from another planet.
I think I was insane."
Anne confessed.
Heche's father, Donald, a Baptist choir director, died from AIDS when Heche was 13.
She only found out he was gay just before he died.
Just a few months later, Heche also lost her brother Nate when he crashed his car into
a tree.
At the same time, she was also experiencing "moments of madness."
"You name it, I could do it," she said.
"I could see into the future.
I could heal people.
I don't know where it came from.
I was, in my mind, learning it from God."
Then Ellen DeGeneres came into her life.
It was Oscars night in 1997, and both Heche and DeGeneres were at the Vanity Fair party.
Ellen was just days away from coming out in her self-titled sitcom.
Heche was just days away from the premiere of her movie Volcano.
DeGeneres had already seen Heche in Walking And Talking and thought she was "amazing."
"And then I met her at the Vanity Fair party.
And it was a chemistry thing that you can't really describe.
It just happened.
Obviously I was attracted to her, but that wasn't enough.
There are a lot of attractive people.
She is so unique."
Anne confessed.
Heche told Oprah Winfrey she saw DeGeneres across a crowded room and was "just drawn
to her."
She described that it was like their souls had come together and they were just "meant
to be"
That night, the pair spent the night together, and it was the first time Anne had ever been
intimate with another woman.
"I felt cared for...
I felt free to express a part of me that I had not been able to express with a man.
I felt sensuous and sexual in a way I hadn't before."
Anne admitted.
From that night on, DeGeneres and Heche were together, very publicly – appearing on Winfrey's
talk show together, and walking the red carpet at the Volcano premiere holding hands.
Heche shared in an interview years later that 20th Century Fox cut ties with her because
she took DeGeneres to the premiere.
"My movie premiere for Volcano, I had told them that I was taking Ellen as my date and
I was told if I took Ellen I would lose my Fox contract.
At that moment, she took my hand and said, 'Do what they say and I said, 'No thanks.'
Anne took Ellen to the premiere despite the fact that the producers had told her not to.
Shockingly, both she and Ellen were ushered out before the movie even ended, and she was
told that she wasn't allowed to attend the after-party for fear that they would get pictures
of her with a woman.
There was such a negative stigma attached to their relationship that Anne was also fired
from her multi-million dollar picture deal, and she did not work in a studio picture for
ten years.
DeGeneres was worried that she was ruining Heche's career.
"I tried to back out of her life," Ellen confessed.
But Heche wouldn't let her do it.
Over the next three years, both women's careers suffered.
But their relationship stayed strong.
Heche says DeGeneres knew everything about her, including her identity as Celestia.
The couple talked openly about wanting to have children.
"I would love to adopt, but Anne really wants the experience of having a baby," DeGeneres
told People.
"We want to have several."
In August of 2000, the couple was seen house-hunting hand in hand.
But days later, it was all over.
According to DeGeneres, Heche just "walked out the door," and she was left wondering
what happened.
"Anne broke my heart into a million pieces," Ellen later said.
"When Anne left, I'd wake up in the morning, and my eyes would just immediately fill up
with tears, and I would start convulsively crying."
Heche admitted they had gotten to the point where they were not happy together anymore.
Perhaps it was all the negativity in the media that seemed to follow their relationship and
how they felt forced to isolate themselves from the world in order to be happy.
While Anne and Ellen weren't able to find their happily ever after together, Ellen has
certainly found it with Portia.
The couple has been happily married for the last 13 years.
Whether the comedian will ever be forgiven by the masses … Well, that deserves another
video entirely.