Portia De Rossi hails Ellen DeGeneres as her ‘idol’ – Watauga Democrat

Portia, 49, shared a slideshow of photos on Instagram and captioned the images: “To my utterly beautiful, supremely talented, insanely accomplished wife on the day of your final show. I married an icon. I married my idol.”

Ellen opened her final show with a clip from the first-ever episode in 2003. She later closed the landmark show with a monologue celebrating the changes in LGBTQ representation in showbiz.

Ellen explained that she “was not allowed to say gay” at the start of her TV career.

She said: “I was not allowed to say ‘gay.’ I said it at home a lot. Like, you know, ‘What are we having for our gay breakfast’ or ‘Pass the gay salt? Has anyone seen the gay remote?’ Things like that, but we couldn’t say ‘gay’. I couldn’t say ‘we’ because that implied that I was with someone, sure; couldn’t say ‘wife’ and that’s because it wasn’t legal for gay people to get married – and now I say ‘wife’ all the time.

“Twenty-five years ago, they cancelled my sitcom because they didn’t want a lesbian to be in primetime once a week, and I said, ‘OK, then I’ll be on daytime every day. How about that?'”

Ellen also thanked her viewers for the support they’ve shown her over years.

She added: “I hope I’ve been able to inspire you to make other people happy and to do good in the world, to feel like you have a purpose. And I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: If I’ve done anything in the past 19 years, I hope I’ve inspired you to be yourself – your true, authentic self.

“And if someone is brave enough to tell you who they are, be brave enough to support them, even if you don’t understand. They’re showing you who they are, and that is the biggest gift anybody can ever give you. And by opening your heart and your mind, you’re going to be that much more compassionate – and compassion is what makes the world a better place.

“Thank you so much for being on this journey with me. I feel the love, and I send it back to you.”