Two years after The Ellen DeGeneres Show reached its abrupt end, Ellen DeGeneres will be returning to Netflix with her second stand-up special for the streamer, which could also be her very last.
People reports that DeGeneres’ new comedy special will premiere late this year after the comedian embarks on a multi-city stand-up tour starting June 19. This marks her second special for Netflix, releasing six years after her 2018 special, Relatable.
Most notably, this will be DeGeneres’ first special since her reputation took a hit in 2020, after several anonymous Ellen Show employees detailed their experiences with racism, sexual misconduct, and hostility behind the scenes in a BuzzFeed News exposé. The disgraced talk show host ended the award-winning show in 2022 after 19 seasons on the air.
And it sounds like the comedian knows the messy end of her show will be at the top of viewers’ minds.
“To answer the questions everyone is asking me – Yes, I’m going to talk about it. Yes, this is my last special. Yes, Portia really is that pretty in real life,” DeGeneres said in a statement.
The special will be produced by Ben Winston and Fulwell73.
DeGeneres addressed the show’s “devastating” end during a recent stop on her Ellen’s Last Stand…Up Tour.
“What else can I tell you?” she said, per Rolling Stone. “Oh yeah, I got kicked out of show business. There’s no mean people in show business.”
She joked that it wasn’t the first time her career had taken such a blow. “For those of you keeping score, this is the second time I’ve been kicked out of show business,” she said, referring to when she came out in the ’90s and her ABC sitcom was subsequently canceled. “Eventually they’re going to kick me out for a third time because I’m mean, old, and gay.”
But she later admitted that this level of public scrutiny was “a whole different thing.”
“This was like, ‘What is going on?’ It was so hurtful,” she said. “I couldn’t gain perspective. I couldn’t do anything to make myself understand that it wasn’t personal… I just thought, ‘Well this is not the way I wanted to end my career, but this is the way it’s ending.’”
A premiere date for DeGeneres’ new comedy special has not yet been announced.
Netflix’s VP of of Stand-Up and Comedy Formats, Robbie Praw, praised the former talk show host and comedian ahead of her new special.
“There is nobody quite like Ellen,” Praw said in a statement. “She is a true legend and pioneer in so many ways. We can’t wait to bring fans another one of her hilarious comedy specials later this year.”
