Ellen DeGeneres’ Netflix Comedy Special: Talk Show End, Backlash

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

Ellen DeGeneres is getting the last laugh.

With her latest (and apparently final) stand-up special now streaming on Netflix, the former daytime talk show host is addressing how she got “kicked out of show business” — and she’s milking it for laughs. But mixed in with the various punchlines 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 like making people happy, and I do care what people think,” she confesses at the top of the special, which is appropriately titled Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval.

Lest you somehow missed the myriad headlines back in 2020, DeGeneres’ eponymous talk show was hit with toxic workplace allegations, which came on the heels of a series of personal swipes at DeGeneres herself. She’s claimed that neither was the reason that she ultimately ended the long-running show, though she has been open about the heartache the controversy caused. “Here’s the problem: I’m a comedian who got a talk show and I ended the show every day by saying, ‘Be kind to one another.’ Yeah, I know, it seemed like a good idea,” she says in the new hour, weaving her way to a well-received punchline: “Had I ended my show by saying, ‘Go fuck yourselves,’ people would have been pleasantly surprised to find out I’m kind.”

Much like this piece, the special begins by providing a refresher of the 2020 saga (which it does through a mess of dramatic headlines), along with the one that engulfed DeGeneres’ career years before, when she famously came out as gay on the cover of Time magazine. Then DeGeneres walks out onstage and offers her own recap. “I got kicked out of show business. Yeah, because I’m mean. You can’t be mean and be in show business. They’ll kick you out. No mean people in show business,” she jokes, adding that this is her second strike. “Kicked me out before because I told them I was out. No gay people in show business. They kick you out. Can’t be gay and be in show business. Eventually they’re going to kick me out a third time for being old — mean, old and gay, the triple crown.”

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

The new hour — which, technically, clocks in at an hour and 10 minutes — comes as part of a pricey two-special deal that DeGeneres signed years ago. The first in that pact, 2018’s Relatable, marked DeGeneres’ first special in 15 years. For Your Approval was produced by Ben Winston and his Fulwell 73 Productions, along with DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, who joins her onstage at the end. Joel Gallen, who also helmed Chris Rock’s 2023 Selective Outrage special, directed.

As the special draws to a close, DeGeneres reveals that she is finally happy — happy not to be a brand or a boss or a billboard anymore, and, to deafening cheers and a standing ovation, declares herself a strong woman. She then thanks the audience profusely for their love and support, acknowledging she didn’t think that she’d ever do stand-up again because she didn’t think she’d be able to find the funny in what had happened. But getting back out there proved “healing,” she concludes to ongoing applause, adding: “I’m so glad I got to say goodbye on my terms.”