Ellen DeGeneres is preparing to take a step out of the spotlight after decades hosting her self-titled talk show.
The final episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show is set to air later this week, and now, the 64-year-old and her wife Portia de Rossi, are planning a trip to Africa with some of their closests friends, embarking on the next chapter of her life.
“Right after the show finale airs she, Portia and her closest friends, including her brother, Vance DeGeneres and his wife, are heading to Rwanda for the opening of her gorilla campus,” a source told The Sun this week.
Degeneres is set to open the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund, marking her passion project as her current career plans are up in the air. According to the insider, “She’s going to take some much-needed time off and just take a pause.”
Back in April, Ellen revealed that she filmed her last-ever episode of her long-running talk show, which she started hosting in 2003. At the time, she took to Twitter to talk about how much has changed since the first episode, clearly getting sentimental.
“Today we taped the final episode of The Ellen Show which airs on May 26th,” DeGeneres wrote. “When we started this show in 2003, the iPhone didn’t exist. Social Media didn’t exist. Gay marriage wasn’t legal. We watched the world change, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.”
She continued, “But whatever was happening, my goal was always for the show to be a place where we could all come together and laugh for an hour. Being invited into your lives has been the greatest privilege of my life and has brought me incredible joy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
Ellen announced a year ago, in May 2021, that her show was ending following complaints of a toxic work environment from staff on the show, which led to an internal investigation from Warner Bros.
The final episode will feature a number of A-list celebrity guests inlcuding Jennifer Aniston, Pink, and Billie Eilish.
