Ellen DeGeneres to end talk show after 19 seasons

“When you’re a creative person, you constantly need to be challenged – and as great as this show is, and as fun as it is, it’s just not a challenge anymore,” DeGeneres told THR.

DeGeneres explained she had originally planned to end the show back in 2016, but her brother and Warner Bros. executives convinced her to sign up for three more years. The host, who also voiced Dory in Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, went on to explain that her wife, actor Portia de Rossi, had been urging her to leave for some time.

"[Portia] wants me to do things that I’m challenged by and she’s watched me come home every day saying, 'I just feel like there’s something more I could be doing,'" DeGeneres said. "I care about the environment. I care about animals. I care about design and furniture… So, definitely people have been saying, 'Why don’t we just try to go a little longer?' But 19 years is a long time to do anything."

DeGeneres has been producing natural history specials and documentaries for Discovery, and also managed to squeeze in a return to stand-up with a Netflix special back in 2018.

In July last year, The Ellen DeGeneres Show had come under scrutiny following allegations by staff of a "toxic workplace" environment, as first published by Buzzfeed, resulting in three producers leaving the Ellen DeGeneres Show following an internal investigation.

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