‘Excruciating’: Ellen’s deteriorating health

The former chat show spoke candidly about her health in her new Netflix special, “For Your Approval,” which marks her comeback after being rejected from Hollywood over toxic workplace claims. 

DeGeneres, 66, told audience members that she didn’t even know how she was managing to be standing on stage due to the state of her bones. 

“I don’t even know how I’m standing up right now. I’m like a human sandcastle. I could disintegrate in the shower,” DeGeneres said.

“I had excruciating pain one day and I thought I tore a ligament or something and I got an MRI and they said, ‘No, it’s just arthritis.’ I said, ‘How did I get that?’ And he said, ‘Oh it just happens at your age,’” she recalled.

The stand-up comedian also explained in the special she had started going to therapy after the backlash and “hatred” from fans took a toll on her mental health. While she was there, she learned she had OCD and ADHD.

“I didn’t know what OCD was. I was raised in a religion, Christian Science, that doesn’t acknowledge diseases or disorders. So when I was growing up, nobody talked about anything. There was no discussion of anything,” she said.

“My ADD makes it really hard to sit down and focus on anything at all. I mean, do you know how hard it was for me to put this together? Of course you don’t. Why would I ask that question? It’s hard for me to focus,” she told a laughing crowd. 

DeGeneres rounded out her ageing segment by telling audience members, “So, I have ADD, I have OCD, I’m losing my memory. But I think I’m well-adjusted, because I obsess on things, but then I don’t have the attention span to stick with it, and I quickly forget what I was obsessing about in the first place. So, it takes me all the way around to being well adjusted, I think.”

She tells the audience: “We have all these unwritten rules based on gender about acceptable behaviour. If we don’t follow those rules, it makes people uncomfortable. And if people are uncomfortable, there are consequences.”

“For those of you keeping score, this is the second time I’ve been kicked out of show business,” she continued, essentially comparing her latest exit to when she was black-listed in the 90s for coming out as a lesbian on Ellen and The Oprah Winfrey Show.

“I’m happy not being a boss or a brand or a billboard, just a person,” she says towards the end of the special.