Ellen DeGeneres is ready to come back to TV after 4

TV STREAMING
TV Shows & Programs

Ellen DeGeneres is ready to come back to TV after 4-year hiatus

Amaris EncinasUSA TODAY
Oct. 16, 2026, 5:18 p.m. ET

Ellen DeGeneres still has TV on the brain.

Nearly five years after “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” ended amid allegations of a toxic workplace, DeGeneres, 68, revealed during an Oct. 16 appearance on “The Graham Norton Show” that she misses the limelight.

“I’ve nothing really going on and I really miss being on TV,” said DeGeneres, who moved to the United Kingdom with her wife, Portia de Rossi, in 2024. “I miss a lot about it – laughing with the writers and the audience. I think about doing stuff here.”

DeGeneres jokingly added: “I think it is pretty easy to get on TV here.”

DeGeneres’ contract officially expired in May 2022, two years after current and former employees alleged in a Buzzfeed News report that they experienced racism, fear and intimidation while working on the show. DeGeneres later issued a public apology on the air.

In a statement to USA TODAY in 2020, executive producers Ed Glavin, Mary Connelly and Andy Lassner said they were “truly heartbroken and sorry to learn” about the claims. Glavin, executive producer Kevin Leman and co-executive producer Jonathan Norman were ousted from the syndicated talk show the following month.

“You have a pottery show, you have a sewing show, and you even have a show about people watching TV shows,” DeGeneres said, referencing U.K. TV shows “The Great Pottery Throwdown,” “The Great British Sewing Bee” and “Gogglebox.”

DeGeneres embarked on a stand-up tour after the show ended but canceled several dates before releasing a Netflix special in which she told fans it was “the last time you’re going to see me.”

Ellen DeGeneres is looking for ‘something’ to do

DeGeneres admitted to BBC in a July 2025 interview that while she loved her new, relaxing life in the English countryside, she had grown “a little bit bored.”

“I want to have fun. I want to do something. I do like my chickens…” she said. DeGeneres announced in April that she would reprise her role as Dory in a new short set in the “Finding Nemo” universe.

“Excited about this,” she wrote in an April 24 Instagram post. While DeGeneres might have been excited by the prospect of getting back out there, she told the outlet she’s not sure she could run another show the same way.

“I just feel like people are watching on their phones, or people aren’t really paying attention as much to televisions, because we’re so inundated with information and entertainment,” DeGeneres said.

In any case, she’s planning her comeback “very carefully.”