Ellen DeGeneres Just Confessed She “Really Misses” Being on TV, and Her Take on British TV Is Absolutely Hilarious
Ellen DeGeneres walked onto the famous red couch of The Graham Norton Show on Friday night and said what millions of her fans have been wondering for years: she wants back on television.
The 68-year-old former talk show queen, who has lived a quiet life in the English countryside since she and her wife Portia de Rossi moved to the UK in 2024, admitted she misses the cameras, the writers room, and the buzz of a live studio audience more than anyone realized.
“I’ve nothing really going on and I really miss being on TV,” she told Norton, in a moment that instantly lit up social media. “I miss a lot about it, laughing with the writers and the audience. I think about doing stuff here.”
That little “here” did a lot of heavy lifting. Ellen was not talking about Hollywood. She was talking about Britain.
From Daytime Queen to Cotswolds Chicken Keeper
It is hard to overstate how completely Ellen DeGeneres stepped away from the spotlight. The Ellen DeGeneres Show ended on May 26, 2022 after 19 seasons, following allegations of a toxic work environment behind the scenes. She apologized to her staffers in a lengthy memo, and three senior producers parted ways with the show after an internal investigation by WarnerMedia.
She later took a stand-up comedy tour on the road and released a Netflix special, where she told fans that it would be “the last time you’re going to see me.” Then she and Portia packed their bags and moved to rural England, where the biggest drama in her life became her chickens, her horses, and, at one point, sheep that lived with them for about two weeks.
But the quiet life has apparently started to wear thin. In July 2025, she told radio presenter Richard Bacon that she was restless: “I want to have fun, I want to do something. I do like my chickens, but I’m a little bit bored.”
Friday’s appearance on The Graham Norton Show suggests that boredom has turned into something like ambition again.
The Pottery Show, the Sewing Show, and the Show About Watching TV
Never one to miss a laugh, Ellen joked that British television is full of options for a returning star. “I think it is pretty easy to get on TV here,” she said. “You have a pottery show, you have a sewing show, and you even have a show about people watching TV shows.”
She was riffing, of course, on the beloved British formats The Great Pottery Throwdown, The Great British Sewing Bee, and Gogglebox. The audience loved it, and the bit landed because there was a grain of truth in it: British TV has a way of turning almost anyone into a national treasure.
Whether she would ever actually host a celebrity pottery contest is another question entirely. But the fact that she is openly joking about formats in her adopted country tells you she has been paying attention to British television, and that the idea of working there is more than a throwaway line.
The “Awkward” Guest With Nothing to Plug
There was one detail about Ellen’s appearance that viewers could not stop talking about. Her fellow guests, Quentin Tarantino, Colin Farrell, and Gemma Chan, all had films and projects to promote. Ellen had nothing. She was simply there, talking about things she would like to do someday.
Some viewers found the segment a little awkward, a star showing up to a promotional couch with no promotion in hand. But there was something genuinely refreshing about it too. For the first time in years, Ellen DeGeneres was not selling anything. She was just being honest.
And she saved her most heartfelt moment for a reflection on why Britain means so much to her. Ellen famously came out as a lesbian in 1997, and her sitcom character came out shortly after. The reaction in America at the time was, in her words, not exactly a celebration.
“In the US they were not very thrilled about my character or me coming out,” she said, “so for it to be celebrated in London was such an honour. To be treated that way when everyone else was done with me was extraordinary.”
It was a rare glimpse of vulnerability from someone who spent decades making the world laugh on command.
Could Ellen Really Get a UK Show?
So what would a British Ellen DeGeneres show even look like? Nobody is confirming anything, and there is no network deal on the table. But British television has a long history of giving American stars a warm second act, and Ellen remains one of the most recognizable hosts in the world.
A gentle chat show would be the obvious fit, something that leans into the warmth she is known for and steers clear of the harder-edged daytime battles of her past. Or she could go the comedy panel route, where her quick wit has always been sharpest. Honestly, after Friday’s pottery show riff, fans would probably tune in to watch her host just about anything.
The bigger question is whether she wants the grind of a daily show again, or something lighter: a weekly series, a holiday special, a limited run of episodes. Given how much she seems to love her countryside life, the smart money is on something that lets her keep the chickens and still get her laughs.
What Comes Next
For now, Ellen DeGeneres remains a woman of the Cotswolds who feeds her chickens in the morning and daydreams about a studio audience in the afternoon. But Friday night changed the story. She said the quiet part out loud: she misses television, and Britain is where she wants to be when the lights come back on.
If a network is smart, it is already on the phone.
Further reading:
- James McAvoy’s podcast confessions
- Best looks from the InStyle Imagemaker Awards 2026
- Kendall Jenner addresses the Cara Delevingne rumors
