Ellen DeGeneres Says She ‘Really Misses’ Being on TV — and Is Eyeing a UK Comeback

So. Ellen DeGeneres misses TV.

Not in a vague, PR-polished, “I’m so grateful for this next chapter” kind of way, either. She said it straight out, on Graham Norton’s couch, on Friday night — October 16 — in front of a studio audience and anyone watching at home. She misses it. The writers. The crowd. The whole noisy, wonderful circus of making a show.

“I’ve nothing really going on and I really miss being on TV,” she told Graham. “I miss a lot about it — laughing with the writers and the audience. I think about doing stuff here.”

Here. As in Britain. As in the place she moved to with Portia de Rossi back in 2024, when the two of them traded Los Angeles for the Cotswolds and a life that was supposed to be quieter. And now? Well. Turns out quiet has a shelf life.

What She Actually Said on Graham Norton

Look, Ellen turning up on The Graham Norton Show was always going to be good television. Graham’s couch is where celebrities go when they’ve got something real to say — or at least something they can’t be bothered to hide anymore. And Ellen showed up looking relaxed, a bit cheeky, very much herself. The version of her that used to dance down those daytime steps like she owned the place. Because, for a long time, she kind of did.

When Graham got her talking about life these days, she didn’t do the celebrity deflection dance. You know the one. “Oh, I’m working on some really exciting things, I can’t say too much yet, stay tuned!” None of that. She just… said it. She misses the job. Misses laughing with writers. Misses an audience.

Honestly? That hit me a bit. Because how many of us have done exactly that — walked away from something, told ourselves it was the right call, loved the peace at first, and then one random Tuesday realized we missed the chaos? The meetings. The people. The feeling of being in the middle of it. Yeah. That’s a universal feeling, even if your “it” isn’t a talk show watched by millions.

And then Ellen did what Ellen does. She made a joke out of it. She said it seems “pretty easy to get on TV here” in the UK — what with the pottery show, and the sewing show, and the show about people sitting on a sofa watching TV shows. The audience laughed, obviously. But I kept thinking: was that entirely a joke? Because she was naming names. The Great Pottery Throw Down. The Great British Sewing Bee. Gogglebox. She’d clearly been watching. You don’t rattle off that list unless you’ve spent a few evenings on the sofa taking it all in.

Let’s Talk About What Ellen Built (Because It Was Huge)

Quick rewind, because if you’re under thirty you might not fully grasp how big Ellen’s daytime run was. This wasn’t just “a talk show.” For the better part of twenty years, Ellen DeGeneres WAS daytime TV. The dancing. The giveaways. The “be kind” sign-off. The celebrities crying on her couch because she’d surprised them with something wonderful. All of it.

But before any of that, there was stand-up. Ellen started in comedy clubs in the ’80s, grinding it out the way every comic does — small rooms, tough crowds, late nights. Her big break came in 1986 on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and Carson — who did not hand out praise lightly — invited her over to sit on the couch after her set. In comedy terms, that’s like getting knighted.

Then came the sitcom. Ellen ran from 1994 to 1998, and in 1997 it made history with the “Puppy Episode,” where her character came out as gay — at the same time Ellen herself came out on the cover of Time magazine. “Yep, I’m Gay.” Three words, huge font, enormous risk. This was 1997. That cover was not a safe career move. It was a brave one, and it cost her. The show got cancelled. The phone stopped ringing. A lot of careers would have ended right there, quietly, in a pile of unreturned calls.

Ellen’s didn’t. She voiced Dory — the forgetful, endlessly optimistic fish in Pixar’s Finding Nemo (2003), a role so perfect it felt written for her — and that same year she launched The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

What followed? Nineteen seasons. Thousands of episodes. A mountain of Daytime Emmys. She hosted the Oscars twice, including the 2014 ceremony that produced the most retweeted selfie ever taken — Bradley Cooper’s arm stretched out, Jennifer Lawrence and Meryl Streep and half of Hollywood crammed into frame. In 2016, President Barack Obama gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. From a cancelled sitcom to the highest civilian honor in America. That’s not a career. That’s a comeback story for the ages.

Why She Left — And Why England

Okay, so we have to be honest here. The ending wasn’t all sunshine and gift giveaways.

The Ellen DeGeneres Show wrapped in 2022 after reports about a toxic workplace behind the scenes — stories that landed hard precisely because they clashed so sharply with the “be kind” brand on screen. Three top executive producers were fired. Ellen apologized, on air and off. The final season had that bittersweet, end-of-an-era feel, and Ellen said she was ready for something new.

And she meant it, at least at first. She did a farewell stand-up tour. She taped a Netflix special, For Your Approval, in 2024 — billed as her last one ever — where she tackled the whole saga head-on, joking about being “kicked out of show business” and how fast the public story around her had flipped. Funny. A little raw. Very much a goodbye.

Then came the move. Late 2024, Ellen and Portia bought a farmhouse in the Cotswolds and settled into English village life — honey-colored stone, rolling hills, pubs with fireplaces, the works. The timing got people talking, coming as it did right around the 2024 US election, and Ellen has never pretended the move was purely about the scenery. She wanted out of the Hollywood machine. She wanted quiet.

And for a while, it looked lovely. Just last month she was spotted having a drink with Meghan Markle at a pub in Oxfordshire — two famous Californians, both now living the countryside life, clinking glasses in a village local. If you pitched that as a TV scene, a producer would tell you it’s too on the nose.

But quiet is funny like that. At first it’s a relief. Then it’s a routine. Then one day you’re sitting on the sofa watching a pottery competition and thinking, “Huh. I could do that.” Or at least: “I miss doing something like that.”

Could Ellen Actually Come Back on British TV?

Right. Deep breath. Because this is the part where the internet runs off and announces “ELLEN IS BACK!!” in all caps, and that’s not what happened.

She didn’t announce a show. She didn’t name a network. She didn’t say “I’m back.” She said she misses TV, and that she thinks about doing stuff in the UK. That’s a feeling, not a press release. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

But — and it’s a pretty big but — she didn’t say no, either. And if you know anything about British television, you know it is basically built for exactly the kind of thing Ellen is good at. Warm formats. Personality-led shows. Gentle competitions where the biggest drama is a soggy bottom or a wobbly vase. Chat shows where the host actually listens instead of waiting for their turn to talk. A one-off special. A guest judge spot. A short series. There are about a dozen ways Ellen could dip a toe back in without signing up for another nineteen-season marathon. And honestly? A lot of them sound genuinely lovely.

Picture it. Ellen, on a Sunday night, wandering around a pottery tent, making a contestant cry laughing while their vase collapses on the wheel. Ellen on a panel show, being dry and quick and totally in her element. Ellen doing a Christmas special where she surprises ordinary people with life-changing gifts — because nobody, and I mean nobody, does that better than her. British audiences would eat it up. They already love her. Her stand-up tour went down a storm here, and her Graham Norton appearance was a reminder of how naturally she fits on that couch.

The pottery joke keeps nagging at me, though. When a comedian who’s spent forty years on television starts listing the shows she’d happily do… you listen. That’s not small talk. That’s window-shopping. And if there was a single TV producer in Britain who wasn’t at least thinking about it after that segment aired, they weren’t doing their job.

What Happens Next?

Here’s the thing about where Ellen is right now: she’s 68, she’s already had the career most performers would trade everything for, and she doesn’t need anything. Not the money. Not the fame. Not the validation. So whatever she does next, she’ll do it because she wants to. And in my experience, that’s usually when people do their most interesting work — when nobody’s forcing their hand.

There’s a legacy question here too, and I think it matters. The last few years of Ellen’s public story were defined by the scandal and the retreat. A comeback — especially a softer, smaller, British-flavored one — would let her write the next chapter herself. Not a desperate clawback. Just a woman who loves making people laugh deciding she’d like to do it again, on her own terms, in a place where the TV is a bit gentler and the pubs are a bit older.

For now, all we’ve got is the tease. Ellen misses TV. She’s thinking about doing something in the UK. She likes the pottery show. And you know what? That’s plenty to get the rumor mill going.

Watch this space. And if, six months from now, you flip on the telly on a Sunday night and see Ellen DeGeneres judging someone’s lopsided clay vase — remember where you heard it first. Right here. Right on Graham Norton’s couch.

Source: Just Jared