Students from the University of Nebraska’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center watching the coming out episode of “Ellen” in Lincoln, Nebraska, Wednesday, April 30, 1997. On the night that Ellen’s coming out episode aired on ABC, thousands of people gathered at viewing parties across the United States. And read one viewer’s reaction in a letter he wrote to the New York Times. Read about the episode’s huge ratings here. Here are just two of an avalanche of articles and columns about the coming out episode of “Ellen.” Read a New York Times editorial here. Watch a clip of the “Ellen” sitcom’s 1997 coming out episode, which was called “The Puppy Episode,” here. Ellen DeGeneres at a taping of “The Ellen Degeneres Show,” 2008. To learn more about Ellen and to view an excerpt of the famous 1997 coming out episode of her show, have a look at the links below. At the time of her Making Gay History interview in 2001, there was no guarantee that Ellen’s star would rise again-and far higher than it had in the 1990s-and that the honors showered on her would include the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 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.