Ellen DeGeneres came out in front of nearly 42 million people
The groundbreaking show may have lost her advertisers, but it won her an Emmy
Ellen Morgan is at the crowded LAX gate, on the hunt for Susan. She and Susan flirted the night before, and now Ellen has a secret she wants to disclose. In all her 35 years on this earth, she hadn’t told a soul. But it was time.
“Okay. You were right. Susan, I’m … I can’t. I can’t even say the word,” Ellen DeGeneres’s character on her sitcom Ellen said. “What’s wrong with me? There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Why am I so afraid to tell people … I’m 35 years old. Why can’t I just come out and say … I’m gay. You hear that? I’m gay. And it sounds pretty darn good. And it sounds pretty darn loud. Oh, my God.”
With those words, Ellen DeGeneres had come out as gay on her ABC sitcom. On the show, Ellen Morgan thinks she’s making this revelation to Susan only, but the airport’s PA system is on. The entire airport has just heard her confession. “I’m so proud of you. I remember how hard it was when I told my first airport full of people,” Susan replied. In real life, close to 42 million people had just witnessed the comedian-actress come out, which was a big deal in 1997.
Ellen became one of the first major shows with an openly lesbian main character. The two-part episode was named “The Puppy Episode” as an inside joke between producers. Special guests abounded — Oprah played Ellen’s therapist, and Laura Dern played Ellen’s love interest, Susan. Demi Moore, Billy Bob Thornton, Melissa Etheridge, and k.d. Lang also made cameos.
Prior to the episode, DeGeneres had never publicly confirmed or denied being gay, but it wasn’t a secret among those who knew her. On the 20th anniversary of her coming-out episode, Newsweek posted the original article it had run following the episode. In her hometown of New Orleans, people remember her being openly gay in the eighties.
Reception to the news was mixed. Chrysler pulled an ad for that particular episode, but not from the show altogether. Wendy’s reportedly refused to advertise on Ellen ever again. Right-wing groups’ attempts to pull the episode failed. On the other hand, it won an Emmy and a Peabody and was the most-viewed episode of the series. But Ellen was canceled after its fifth season, only one season after its groundbreaking episode.
“She’s so happy the show was done right,” one of the show’s executive producers, Dava Savel, said. “It was everything she wanted it to be. So in that sense, she’s free.”
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