(CelebrityAccess) — Comedian Ellen DeGeneres revealed that she plans to end her long-running, much-lauded daytime talk show in 2022 at the end of its 19th season.
DeGeneres explained her decision to end the show in an interview published on Wednesday by The Hollywood Reporter, telling the publication that the show was no longer a “challenge” for her.
“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.
The show, which has won an impressive collection of 64 daytime Emmy Awards is heading into its 18th season.
While DeGeneres framed her decision to step away from the show as a need to be challenged, DeGeneres has faced mounting criticism in the last year over her alleged treatment of staff and reportedly creating a toxic work environment.
Last year, amid the pandemic, DeGeneres took a hiatus from the show and later came back to offer a formal apology and claimed she was taking responsibility for the show’s environment going forward.
However, she told THR that the controversy didn’t factor into her decision to end the talk show.
“If I was quitting the show because of that, I wouldn’t have come back this season. So, it’s not why I’m stopping but it was hard because I was sitting at home, it was summer, and I see a story that people have to chew gum before they talk to me and I’m like, ‘Okay, this is hilarious.’ Then I see another story of some other ridiculous thing and then it just didn’t stop. And I wasn’t working, so I had no platform, and I didn’t want to address it on [Twitter] and I thought if I just don’t address it, it’s going to go away because it was all so stupid,” she told THR.
DeGeneres started her career as a stand-up comic and quickly earned an appearance on the vaunted Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. In 1994, she was cast in the ABC sitcom “Ellen” and became the first major television character and actor to come out publicly as gay, while DeGeneres made a similar confession about herself on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Unfortunately for DeGeneres, the show’s ratings declined precipitously after the revelation and went off the air after one more season.
