Ellen DeGeneres' Netflix Comedy Special: Talk Show Ends, Backlash

[This story contains spoilers from Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval.]

Ellen DeGeneres will have the last laugh.

With her latest (and seemingly final) stand-up special now streaming on Netflix, the former daytime talk show host is addressing how she was “kicked out of show business” and getting some laughs out of it. But mixed in with the jokes are also moments of sincerity and genuine reflection. “I'm here because I love doing stand-up, and I miss doing stand-up, and I love making people happy, and I care what people think,” she confesses at the start of the special, which is fittingly titled Ellen DeGeneres: For your approval.

In case you missed the headlines of 2020, DeGeneres’s eponymous talk show was hit by toxic workplace allegations, which came on the heels of a series of personal attacks on DeGeneres herself. She has said neither were the reason she ultimately ended the long-running show, though she has been open about the pain the controversy caused. “Here’s the problem: I’m a comedian who got a talk show, and I ended the show every day saying, ‘Be kind to each other.’ Yeah, I know, it seemed like a good idea,” she says in the new hour, working her way toward a well-received punchline: “If I ended my show saying, ‘Go f**k you,’ people would have been pleasantly surprised to find out that I’m kind.”

Much like this piece, the special begins by refreshing memories of the 2020 saga (which it does through a series of dramatic headlines), along with the one that swept DeGeneres' career years earlier, when she came out as gay on the cover of Time magazine. Then DeGeneres takes the stage and offers her summary. “They kicked me out of show business. Yeah, because I'm bad. You can't be bad and be in show business. They'll kick you out. There are no bad people in show business,” she jokes, adding that this is her second strike. “They kicked me out first because I told them I was out. There are no gay people in show business. They kick you out. You can't be gay and be in show business. They'll kick me out a third time because I'm old: bad, old, and gay, the triple crown.”

And there’s plenty more comedy where that came from. “For me, it was never about money. It was about healing my childhood wounds. I thought, if I could make people happy, they’d like me. And if they’d like me, I’d feel good about myself,” she says at one point and then deadpans: “And all I can say about that is, thank God for money.” Of course, DeGeneres touches on other topics, from chickens to parallel parking, but the overwhelming majority of the special focuses on the controversy and its impact.

The new time, which technically reads one hour and 10 minutes, is part of a pricey special deal DeGeneres signed two years ago. The first of that pact, in 2018 Traceablemarked DeGeneres' first special in 15 years. For your approval was produced by Ben Winston and his Fulwell 73 Productions, along with DeGeneres and his wife Portia de Rossi, who joins her onstage at the end. Joel Gallen, who also directed Chris Rock's 2023 Selective outrage special, direct.

As the special comes to a close, DeGeneres reveals that she is finally happy, happy to no longer be a brand, a boss, or a billboard, and, to deafening applause and a standing ovation, declares herself a strong woman. She then thanks the audience profusely for their love and support, acknowledging how she never thought she could do stand-up comedy again because she didn’t think she could find the humor in what had happened. But getting back out there has been “healing,” she concludes to continued applause, adding, “I’m so glad I was able to say goodbye to my condition.”

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