Ellen DeGeneres: ‘I Left the US Because of Trump and Fears of Gay Marriage Reversal’

In her first public appearance since her disappearance from daytime television in 2022,  Ellen DeGeneres has confirmed that she moved to the U.K. permanently, partially due to the re-election of President Donald Trump. Alongside her wife, Portia de Rossi, the two initially planned to spend just part of the year in the historic and picturesque Cotswolds area of England, but made it a permanent decision after Trump’s re-election in November 2024, the BBC reports.

DeGeneres is the second highly visible Hollywood lesbian to cite Donald Trump as their reason to leave the United States, following in the footsteps of Rosie O’Donnell.

At the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham, England, this past Sunday, while in conversation with Richard Bacon, a broadcaster, she confirmed that Trump was one of the factors that led to their expatriation. DeGeneres states, “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.’ And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here.’”

After moving to their farm in the countryside, DeGeneres has shown small snippets of her new rural life, including adventures in raising farm animals and admiring the simpler way of life found in the Cotswolds. DeGeneres adds, “everything here is just better,” including “the way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here.”

Furthermore, Ellen also referenced a worrisome recent move by the Southern Baptist Convention to endorse the reversal of the Supreme Court case, Obergefell v. Hodges. Obergefell v. Hodges is the 2015 landmark Supreme Court case backing same-sex marriage. At least nine state legislatures have introduced bills to do the same.

“The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage,” says the 67-year-old. “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.” She also added that the United States can still be “scary for people to be who they are.”

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

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