Ellen DeGeneres has opened up about the personal struggles she faced after coming out as a lesbian during an episode of her popular sitcom, Ellen.
Speaking to actor Dax Shepard on his , DeGeneres reflected on the ratings success and swift downfall of her comedy program, which began airing in 1994.
“It was huge. It was celebrated, it was 45 million people that watched – and then they just stopped promoting it, because everybody was scared," she said.
She continued: "We were losing sponsors, so they were just acting like: ‘We’re just letting it glide. We’re not going to touch it.'"
"The ground-breaking hit sitcom!" Source: Twitter
“So I got no more advertising, I got no more promotion. So they canceled it," she said.
Ellen then opened up about the depression that followed, recalling one hurtful comment in particular, made by openly gay musician Elton John.
“Even Elton John said, ‘Shut up already. We know you’re gay. Be funny’” she recalled.
“I had never met him and I thought, ‘What kind of support is that from a gay person?’” She said.
"Yep, I'm Gay" - Ellen's cover of TIME magazine. Source: TIME magazine
“It hurt my feelings. I was getting jokes made at my expense on every late-night show, people were making fun of me – so I was really depressed."
She continued: “And because of that, and because the show was cancelled, I was looked at as a failure in this business. So no-one would touch me.”
However, success would soon follow.
Last year Ellen celebrated 2,500 episodes of her talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which debuted in 2003 and has now been running for 15 years.
