Ellen DeGeneres’ Coming Out Story

In 1997, WBMA, a local ABC affiliate located in Birmingham, made an unexpected change to its lineup at the last minute. Normally, the 8 pm slot was reserved for "Ellen," a sitcom starring Ellen DeGeneres. However, that was preempted because Ellen Morgan (DeGeneres' character in the show) was about to come out as gay. This plot point was considered quite inappropriate for the normal family viewing hour.

The decision to censor the show was unusual, but it revealed the controversy surrounding Ellen's decision to open up about her sexuality both on and off the screen. Time magazine's cover story that month featured DeGeneres formally announcing her sexuality was seen as a potentially career-tarnishing move.

Regardless of the number of gay characters that were on television even at the time, Ellen was carrying the burden of being the first leading character to come out. It was radical. At the time, ABC wasn't too pumped about the idea. A network executive suggested that instead of coming out, the character should have another transformative arc by getting her a puppy instead.

Screen Test

Over the years, TV struggled to handle sponsorship and network anxieties due to sexual depictions; candid conversations about sex were generally verboten. This self-imposed censored was eventually loosened for straight relationships but stayed for gay relationships.

This remained unchanged till 1972 when there was an advent of a constant gay character in the person of Panama Peter (Schiavelli Vincent) on the ABC show, "The Corner Bar". It was even regularly seen on TV. However, it was four years after that a gay couple was revealed. This was on "Hot I Baltimore," produced by Norman Lear. Barney Miller acted as different gay characters with support from the National Gay Task Force advocacy group in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This was done to limit stereotypic portrayals.

Even though these shows made progress in showing the diversity of the TV population, it was still uncommon to have leading gay characters. So Ellen DeGeneres coming out both as a leading TV character and in her personal life hadn't been done before. 

Ellen is native to Metairie, Louisiana. In 1981, she began to draw attention to herself due to her unique delivery style. Not too long after, she received an endorsement from Jay Leno. Consequently, she was booked to appear on "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson''. This was normally seen as a great career boost for comics at the time.

The 1990s were also known as a time when stand-up success typically led to being called on for a sitcom offer. Jerry Seinfeld had that work for him. Ellen's show, "These Friends of Mine," had its premiere in 1994 on ABC. It followed the story of Ellen Morgan, an LA bookstore owner figuring out how to navigate single life, being a thirty-something-year-old. In the second season, it was renamed "Ellen" for easy differentiation from the series "Friends."

By the time the show's fourth season was airing, stories began to circulate that Ellen Morgan would likely come out of the closet. The network, ABC, kept using terms like "radical" and "self-discovery" to give a prelude to the coming changes. Ellen DeGeneres kept beating about the bush when asked the question on talk shows. She made comments like Ellen Morgan may come out as being  "Lebanese."

Coming Out 

Eventually, Ellen confirmed the suspicions of most on Time, April '97. She was intent on navigating the line between being cast as the spokesperson for the LGBTQ+ community and having a personal life.

She later mentioned that she was warned about her actions being able to harm her career, the show, or even both. WBMA insisted on airing the "coming out" episode later that evening, attempting to limit adolescent viewers from watching it. However, ABC denied the request, and then WBMA decided not to go on with it at all.

Eventually, none of the worries about Ellen DeGeneres destroying her career came true. As a result of the public attention and various guest appearances from Oprah Winfrey, Billy Bob Thornton, and Dern, the episode was seen almost three times more than the average viewer count of episodes on the series. It was seen by over 44 million people in total. Even though the entire show was able to push out just one more season, the reason wasn't because of the episode. The ratings were just generally nothing great. 

Ellen eventually found noteworthy success as a voice actor in 2003's Finding Nemo and much more as the host of her daytime talk series, "The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Her show ran till 2022. In 2016, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom due to her contributions to LGBTQ+ acceptance.