When Ellen DeGeneres and her television character came out of the closet simultaneously, the media hurricane was a Category 5 and the backlash included hate mail, death threats, and ultimately the cancellation of her show. For Ellen that peril was the potential loss of everything she’d worked for, including her very popular TV sitcom that featured Ellen DeGeneres as Ellen Morgan. Like most pioneers across time, Ellen brushed past the risks knowing full well that there was peril in stepping off the ledge. But that’s exactly where she found herself in 1997 when she broke out of the professional closet she’d inhabited since becoming a standup comic. Episode NotesĮllen DeGeneres didn’t grow up thinking that she’d be a pioneer in the fight for LGBTQ equal rights and visibility.
