Ellen DeGeneres now says she’s quitting show business altogether

Most “canceled” celebrities are desperate to get back in the game, but Ellen DeGeneres has apparently looked around and said, “You know what? This works for me.” She’s already said her upcoming Netflix special, a taped version of “Ellen’s Last Stand… Up Tour,” would be her final one. But it’s not just from stand-up comedy that she’s retiring. When asked at a recent show if she’d try Broadway or movies next, DeGeneres reportedly said, “Um, no,” according to SFGate. “This is the last time you’re going to see me. After my Netflix special, I’m done.”

A full-on Hollywood retirement is a big departure for the woman who used to juggle hosting her talk show, a game show, and award shows. Much of DeGeneres’ current set focuses on how she feels she got “kicked out of show business,” a sentiment not necessarily accurate given that she chose to end her eponymous talk show on her own terms and then got Netflix to release her stand-up special. At this point, every talk show on air has been exposed for similar toxic workplace allegations, but the controversy around her show and her star persona quite fairly took a “toll on my ego and my self-esteem,” as DeGeneres admitted at one show.

Perhaps it’s the numbers that have led DeGeneres to conclude she has to bow out. The Ellen DeGeneres Show faced declining ratings in its final seasons; more recently, she abruptly canceled four dates on her stand-up tour, and according to The Los Angeles Times, only eight of her 27 dates were sold out. That’s probably as much a reflection of the current state of the industry as it is anything else, but if you were in the middle of a PR crisis, it would be pretty easy to take personally.

It’s hard to feel bad for a ridiculously wealthy celebrity, but the last few years certainly haven’t been easy on DeGeneres. 2022 saw the death of both her former girlfriend Anne Heche and her talk show sidekick Stephen “tWitch” Boss. In her stand-up shows, she’s discussed the difficulty of caring for her mother, who has dementia. Any of these factors could reasonably contribute to someone’s decision to retire.

Still, in the entertainment industry, “retirement” rarely sticks. It’s hard to imagine DeGeneres really, truly disappearing for good. Yet she’s even eschewed voice-over work, which is easy money—especially when you’re working with Pixar. SFGate reports that when a fan “begged” her to reprise the role of Dory in the Finding Nemo franchise, DeGeneres responded, “No, I’m going bye-bye, remember.” Perhaps it really is curtains after all.