Ellen DeGeneres had a broad grin on her face when she was glimpsed with her wife Portia de Rossi on vacation in Florence this week.
The couple of over 20 years live full-time in England now, having relocated to the Cotswolds last year after Donald Trump won the US presidential election.
They previously led a life of relative privacy in the celebrity enclave of Montecito in Santa Barbara, California, following the end of Ellen’s daytime talk-show in 2022 amid a blizzard of allegations that she presided over a ‘toxic’ work environment.
However all their concerns seemed banished to the past when Ellen, 67, and Portia, 52, were seen Friday strolling to the Ponte Vecchio in the Tuscan capital.
Dressed in a white half-sleeve shirt and matching trousers, Ellen swung an affectionate arm around her wife, who had slid her slim frame into a little black dress.
Their sighting comes the same day it emerged that Ellen has been sued for negligence by a woman who claims the talk-show host t-boned her Tesla after running a stop sign, according to court documents obtained by TMZ.
The Daily Mail has contacted Ellen’s representative for comment.
Ellen DeGeneres had a broad grin on her face when she was glimpsed with her wife Portia de Rossi on vacation in Florence this week
In her court documents, the woman asserts that the alleged car accident took place in Santa Barbara County in December 2023, back when Ellen lived there.
The plaintiff claims to have pulled to a complete halt at the stop sign, at an intersection where all the streets had stop signs.
She insists that she looked around for oncoming traffic and then drove into the intersection, whereupon Ellen’s car struck the side of hers.
Per the suit, Ellen allegedly caused the crash by running the sign, supposedly injuring the plaintiff, who is demanding an unspecified amount in damages.
After Ellen’s show ended in 2022 in a maelstrom of controversy about the backstage treatment of staff, she largely withdrew from the spotlight.
Ellen and Portia retreated into relative reclusion in Montecito, a Santa Barbara enclave that was also home to such celebrities as Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry and Megan Markle and Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom.
Last year she staged a comeback, going on tour with an act called Ellen’s Last Stand…Up, which was filmed as the Netflix special For Your Approval.
While promoting her tour, she addressed the scandal that had overshadowed her career, saying she was ‘kicked out of show business’ for being ‘mean.’
All their concerns seemed banished to the past when Ellen, 67, and Portia, 52, were seen Friday strolling through the picturesque Florentine streets
However all their concerns seemed banished to the past when Ellen, 67, and Portia, 52, were seen Friday strolling to the Ponte Vecchio in the Tuscan capital
She recalled: ‘The hate went on for a long time and I would try to avoid looking at the news. The “be kind” girl wasn’t kind. That was the headline,’ via Rolling Stone.
Sarcastically saying there are ‘no mean people in show business,’ she noted: ‘I became this one-dimensional character who gave stuff away and danced up steps.’
Ellen joked: ‘Do you know how hard it is to dance up steps? Would a mean person dance up steps? Had I ended my show by saying: “Go f*** yourself,” people would’ve been pleasantly surprised.’
She confessed she ‘didn’t know how to be a boss’ and pointed out she learned to practice her profession at ‘Charlie’s Chuckle Hut’ rather than at business school.
‘The show was called Ellen and everybody was wearing T-shirts that said “Ellen” and there were buildings on the Warner Brothers lot that said Ellen, but I don’t know that that meant I should be in charge,’ she observed.
