Ellen reveals a shocking ban during the last episode

The 64-year-old TV presenter, who first hosted The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2003 featured the Season 19 finale on Friday, where she dropped a bombshell about a word she wasn’t allowed to say at the start of the show.

“I couldn’t say ‘gay’ on the show. I wasn’t allowed to say ‘gay,'” Ellen told viewers.

“I said it a lot at home. ‘What do we eat for gay breakfast?’ Or ‘pass the gay salt.’ ‘Has anyone seen the gay remote?’ — things like that,” she joked, before revealing what else about her private life that she was forbidden to mention at the start of the show.

“I couldn’t say ‘we’ because it implied I was with someone. Of course, I couldn’t say woman.

“It was because it was not legal for homosexuals to marry. And now I say woman all the time,” she added, referring to his wife Portia de Rossi.

DeGeneres then referenced her 90s sitcom Ellenwhich was canceled in 1998 shortly after her character rose to fame came out of.

“Twenty-five years ago they canceled my sitcom because they didn’t want a lesbian to be on prime time once a week. So I said, ‘OK, I’ll be on daytime every days, what do you think?’ “.

She later described her long tenure on daytime television as the “most beautiful trip” and “greatest experience” of her life.

“If I’ve done anything in the past 19 years, I hope I’ve inspired you to be yourself. Your true, authentic self,” DeGeneres said.

“And if someone is brave enough to tell you who they are, be brave enough to support them, even if you don’t understand. They show you who they are, and that’s the greatest gift anyone can ever give you.

After interviews with Billie Eilish and Jennifer Aniston, close friend of DeGeneres, pop star

P!nk, was the latest guest on the show, as she serenaded the outgoing host with a rendition of her song What about us.

DeGeneres then said goodbye the same way she did in the very first episode, sitting on a couch and turning off the television as the doors to the stage closed behind her.

DeGeneres, reportedly amassing a net worth of $700 million, has helmed more than 3,000 shows, rivaling broadcast queen Oprah Winfrey.

But DeGeneres sensationally unplugged her show in May last year, more than 12 months after his reputation went downhill almost overnight due to allegations of toxic work.

Her iconic “be nice” catchphrase first came into question when a March 2020 tweet from writer and comedian Kevin T. Porter claimed she was “notoriously one of the baddest people in the world.” world “.

It went viral, with over 1000 responses of people detailing their horrific experiences with her.

The aftermath has been even more brutal, with countless staff members coming forward with their own stories of bullying. Most notably, a story from July 2020 in News Feed cited 10 former employees and one employee at the time denounce Ellen’s program.

They unanimously described a “toxic work environment” with a culture of “racism, fear and intimidation”.

An internal Warner Bros investigation after months of negative press led to the firing of top producers Ed Glavin, Kevin Leman and Jonathan Norman.

Addressing toxic workplace claims for the first time after returning to television for Season 18 in September 2020, DeGeneres admitted she was a “work in progress” but pleaded to viewers that she was always “the person you see on TV”.

“As you may have heard over the summer there were allegations of a toxic work environment at our show and then there was an investigation. I learned that things have happened here that should never have happened,” she said.

“I take this very seriously and want to say I’m so sorry for the people who have been affected.”

She admitted that being known as the ‘be nice’ lady is “a tricky position to be in”.

“Sometimes I am sad. I get angry. I become anxious. I’m frustrated. I am getting impatient. And I’m working on all of that. I am a work in progress.

“And I mostly work on impatience because… and it’s not going well because it’s not going fast enough.”