Ellen DeGeneres is heading out on tour
By Jordan Redman
Staff Writer
The out and proud talk show host Ellen DeGeneres is heading out on the road for the first time in 15 years. The tour, An Evening with Ellen DeGeneres, kicks off this summer.
But no one in The Gayly’s region should get too excited. The daytime talk-show host will perform in three cities only, all on the West Coast.
According to the Thursday, June 14 Instagram post, Ellen will be performing just eight shows in three cities along the West Coast — three shows in San Francisco, three in San Diego, and two in Seattle — from August 10 through August 23.
"I'm doing my first stand-up shows in 15 years," DeGeneres posted. "I'm coming to Seattle, San Francisco and San Diego. Come see me.”
The last show of the tour will be filmed for an upcoming Netflix special.
"I'm excited to do it, I'm excited for you to see it," she said during the announcement. "And now, each one of you, you get to Netflix & chill with me. How about that?"
Before her primetime sitcom Ellen or her syndicated daytime talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, DeGeneres began her career as a comedy club host in her hometown of New Orleans.
DeGeneres’ coming out impacted pop culture for decades to come. “Did you expect it to turn into all of this?” Oprah Winfrey asked DeGeneres on an episode of her talk show that aired on April 30, 1997.
Two weeks earlier, a Time cover had debuted, featuring DeGeneres and the instantly famous words “Yep, I’m Gay.” On April 25, DeGeneres spoke to Diane Sawyer on 20/20 and said, “I decided this was not going to be something that I was going to live the rest of my life being ashamed of.”
Since then, she has hosted the Oscars, won the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 and starred in two blockbuster cartoons.
Before presenting her with the medal, President Obama alluded to a time in the late 1990s when it looked like DeGeneres’ career had crashed and burned because she had come out as a lesbian.
“It’s easy to forget now when we’ve come so far, where now marriage is equal under the law; just how much courage was required for Ellen to come out on the most public of stages almost 20 years ago,” said our 44th President.
Her 2001 and 2003 HBO stand-up specials earned her multiple Emmy nominations, and last year she announced she’d return to the stand-up stage for a new special, joining such other comedy stars such as Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle and Jerry Seinfeld at Netflix.
So far, DeGeneres hasn't specified what we can expect from her set or Netflix special.
If it’s anything similar to her talk show, we can expect Ellen to give the crowd a good jump scare, possibly show clips of her and Oprah casually grocery shopping, or perhaps a spoof on the latest trendy music video.
Tickets for the show will be sold through Ticketmaster Verified Fan.
Copyright The Gayly – July 23, 2018 @ 8 a.m. CDT.