Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi's Life-Altering Love Story

Do you remember what was Big in '04?

Paris Hilton saying "That's hot." Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson as Newlyweds. Flavor Flav and Brigitte Nielsen as The Surreal Life's hottest couple.

None of those things are big anymore, but behind the scenes at VH1's Big in '04 Awards something much more momentous was brewing.

Dec. 1, 2004, happens to have been the night when Ellen DeGeneres ran into Portia de Rossi at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium, after which de Rossi's life would never be the same.

Of course, neither of their lives would ever be the same, because they've been together ever since, but de Rossi was the one who emerged like a butterfly from her chrysalis, finally embracing who she was.

"I was thinking, Well, the people who need to know I'm gay know, and I'm somehow living by example by continuing on with my career and having a full, rich life, and I am incidentally gay, but it's not a big political platform. I justified it in so many ways," de Rossi told The Advocate in the summer of 2005. "Believe me, I had a very, very long and difficult struggle with my sexuality."

The Ally McBeal actress hadn't been avoiding relationships with women, or at least she hadn't since her 1999 divorce from Mel Metcalfe. (The Australian actress said she married him for the green card, but in the end she couldn't bring herself to take advantage of their "great, caring relationship.")

And she was in a relationship with writer-filmmaker Francesca Gregorini when she met DeGeneres.

But as she would soon admit, as she tottered into the real-deal spotlight as the partner of one of the most famous openly gay women in the world, she hadn't really been living her life all the way out.

De Rossi let photographs taken of her with Gregorini over the course of their two-year relationship, during which they lived for a time together in Vancouver, do the talking for her. But she would change the subject when interviewers asked if she was gay. She didn't talk about that part of her private life at all, at least not publicly, until she was with DeGeneres.

She revealed to The Advocate in 2005 that, just days beforehand, she had come out to the last person on her list, her 98 1/2-year-old grandmother in her native Australia, who initially thought she said "Alan," not "Ellen."

De Rossi's grandma lived till 103, passing away at home with a photo from her granddaughter's 2008 wedding to Alan on her bedside table.

DeGeneres' public coming out, meanwhile, occurred on the April 14, 1997, cover of TIME magazine, so she was fully aware of how much of a conversation simply living one's truth could start.

"She was so courageous and so loud in '97, and now she is doing something that is more subliminal," de Rossi said admiringly. "She's changing the world, she really is, and it's exciting to be a part of that." She added, "It's hard having a relationship that's public. It's hard living a life that's somewhat public, and hard when you put that life together with someone who is so famous and so loved and admired. It's also real exciting."

After dating Anne Heche for a few headline-making years, DeGeneres first met de Rossi in 2000. "I really never stopped thinking about her," De Rossi recalled to The Advocate, "because I just haven't felt that kind of energy with anyone in my life. So there's that."

Then they saw each other again at a photo shoot and DeGeneres "took my breath away," the Arrested Development star said. So when they reunited at the Big in '04 Awards, that was that.

By the end of 2005, they were sharing a two-bedroom home in L.A. and parenting three rescue cats. (London's Evening Standard, reporting in 2004 that Gregorini was devastated by the sudden breakup, said that de Rossi had moved right in with DeGeneres two weeks after the award show.)

They also bought a 120-acre ranch, de Rossi being an avid horseback rider.

"It's the first time that I've known in every cell of my being that I'm with somebody for the rest of my life," DeGeneres told People in November 2005. She had been in a relationship with photographer Alexandra Hedison for four years before she and de Rossi got together.

"We were just supposed to be together," the still fairly new talk show host said. "It was a tough decision. I was physically getting sick because I was trying not to say anything. So I told Alex and she told Francesca. It was really hard to uproot everything."

Gregorini admitted to The Advocate in 2014 that her breakup with de Rossi was "pretty harrowing. I've never really talked about it, and, I want to be respectful to all the players, and, to be honest, I've definitely made my peace—Portia and I are friends, I'm friends with Ellen."

"Everything turned out as it was meant to," Gregorini added, "but it definitely, at the time, it was a very harrowing experience, because heartbreak is harrowing. Any breakup is just awful, but then to be dragged through the press, while it's happening, in real time, it's definitely not a picnic. It did make me stronger. I definitely went down for the count, for a couple months there, but, it definitely gave me a resolve to pick myself up, and make something of myself, and my life...

"We were meant to be together for that point in time, and, and then not, and I think she's found a great partner for her. I think they're really well matched."

Both dedicated animal lovers, DeGeneres and de Rossi have also been doting moms to their various rescue pets, while DeGeneres' eponymous talk show was her other baby for 19 years.

"It's the hardest job I've ever had, but it's the most satisfaction I've ever had, so I'm sure it's like being a mother," DeGeneres told People in 2005, when The Ellen DeGeneres Show was only in its third season. "It challenges you every day."

She's now a 32-time Emmy winner—one prime-time for writing from her 1990s sitcom Ellen, and 31 Daytime, including five for Outstanding Talk Show Host before she took herself out of the running in 2010.

Rumors abounded that she might step down (or be canceled, in the actual TV sense) ahead of the 2020-2021 season amid an investigation into allegations of a toxic work environment behind the scenes at Ellen. Ultimately three producers were fired, but DeGeneres vowed to her staff—and her audience—to do better and pressed on, eventually setting her exit date for 2022.

"I learned that things happened here that never should have happened," DeGeneres said on her season 18 premiere in September 2020. "I take that very seriously and I want to say I am so sorry to the people who were affected...We have made the necessary changes, and today we are starting a new chapter."

Her fans were there for her, voting her talk show to E! People's Choice Awards in 2020 and 2021.

"It means more to me especially now," DeGeneres told the audience in December 2021. "This is our final season so to all the people who voted and to everyone that I have worked with for the past 19 years, we are a family. I love all of you. I'm grateful and thank you for supporting me for all these 19 years that we've been doing the show and the show has been the greatest experience of my life. I have enjoyed every bit of it."

And de Rossi was by her side through 18 years of it.

"It broke my heart," DeGeneres told People in February 2021 of the turmoil surrounding her show. "I couldn't have gone through everything I went through without her. "It was a horrible time in my life, and she was a rock. She kept me going and tried to help me put things in perspective."

De Rossi told the magazine, "We've grown together as a couple, and we really consider each other and put our relationship first. By doing that, you become a lot more solid. I can't imagine spending time with anyone but her."

Now, celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary Aug. 16, DeGeneres' Ellen chapter is behind her, but she and de Rossi still have each other.

"With this show ending, it's actually a big thing for both of us," DeGeneres told de Rossi in May when the host's spouse visited as a guest for the last time, noting that they got together during season two, "'cause you've watched me go through everything with this show."

And in turn, the show's audience has been privy to many of their milestones as a couple.

On May 15, 2008, after the California Supreme Court struck down a law that barred same-sex marriage, deeming it unconstitutional, DeGeneres announced on the air that they were planning to tie the knot. (Same-sex marriage became legal in every state in 2015.) 

She and de Rossi got married on Aug. 16, 2008, at their Beverly Hills estate, both wearing Zac Posen for their big day.

For a long time now, Ellen has been right up there with Oprah Winfrey in terms of no-last-name-needed pop culture titans. And she's become quite the Southern California real estate tycoon, buying and selling more than 20 properties since 2003, including a mansion in Los Angeles that she and de Rossi sold for $55 million to Napster co-founder Sean Parker in 2014—six months after buying it for $40 million; a Bali-inspired home in Montecito they bought in 2019 for $27 million and flipped for $33.3 million the next year; and a beach house they owned in Carpinteria for two years before selling it in 2019 for $23 million to cosmetics mogul Jamie Kern Lima.

In May 2021, per Architectural Digest, they re-purchased for $14.3 million Rancho San Leandro, a historic Montecito property they sold a few years prior to Tinder founder Sean Rad for $11 million. A month later they added a modest two-bedroom, midcentury-modern bungalow near Butterfly beach to their portfolio for $2.9 million.

As for the 9,200-square-foot Beverly Hills house where they tied the knot: Ellen sold it to pal Ryan Seacrest for around $40 million in 2012—apparently right out from under Jennifer Aniston.

"How's my home?" Aniston teased Seacrest on E! Live From the Red Carpet at the Golden Globes in 2020, joking that she knew DeGeneres may be right behind her and that the comedian was "well aware" of her feelings about the house.

Home ownership has proved harrowing at times: DeGeneres and de Rossi were among the thousands of residents who had to evacuate their house in Montecito when the 2017 Thomas fire blazed through the area.

The fires were followed by mudslides that left at least 20 people dead in the Montecito area. The couple had been back in their home for 10 days when they evacuated again.

They expressed their thanks to the heroic firefighters and other first responders who risked their lives during both disasters.

Talking to Extra in December 2017 about their last-minute change of plans for the holidays, which they'd planned to spend in Montecito, Ellen put it all into perspective.

"We'll just lay low and just, you know, be grateful for having our pets with us and Portia's horses are evacuated and we're hoping to get them someplace soon and it's, you know, it takes something like this to just remember, you know, just how fragile life is, and how you should never take anything for granted," she said. "I'll be counting my blessings for Christmas."

Despite the (sometimes literal) storms they've weathered, like any famous couple, their soul-mates-finding-each-other story hasn't excused them from the annoyances of being in the public eye. They've been the subject of as many split rumors as anybody, triggered by anything as innocuous-seeming as a missed award show or a bare ring finger, enough so that DeGeneres joked about them on her show in 2013.

She said she had been flipping through a tabloid that put on its cover that her marriage was crumbling, only to find that article ripped out. "I will never know what's tearing my marriage apart," she quipped.

But when stories that they were going through a messy split wouldn't go away, Ellen was compelled to speak out more forcefully in March 2014.

"The truth is, and this is corny, I fall more in love with Portia all the time. I really do," she insisted to People. "She surprises me all the time. It's what anyone experiences when you find that person that gets you, wants to take care of you, wants the best for you. We're really lucky because we know how rare it is."

In 2016 the rumor mill was at it again, prompting DeGeneres to tell People, "I can't imagine not being married. I have my best friend, the person I want to spend time with more than anybody else in the world."

She and de Rossi remained as devoted to each other as ever, she said, and they readily put in the work that any committed relationship requires.

"Our priorities are each other too," DeGeneres said. "If we had kids, then I'm sure they would be, but we are. And that's important."

On their ninth wedding anniversary, she wrote on Instagram alongside one of their wedding photos, "Being her wife is the greatest thing that I am."

In 2018, they celebrated the big 10 with fans by sharing never-before-seen pictures and video from their wedding day.

"Ten years ago, Wayne Dyer officiated our wedding ceremony. These words were life-changing to us then, and they mean just as much now," DeGeneres captioned one post.

"10 years ago today, Ellen and I were married," de Rossi wrote in another. "We wanted to share Wayne Dyer's poignant and special words with you to remind us all how far we've come—that we are living in a country that supports #marriageequality #waynedyer."

Now with 15 years of marriage in the books, they're still having the best time together.

During her last appearance on Ellen, de Rossi told her wife that, for her next chapter, "Honestly, I just want you to do something that makes you really happy. But I want to make sure that you continue being a teacher, because that's really what you've been for everybody...I just feel like, more than ever, we need love and light and laughter—so I hope that you continue to do something like that. Like standup, for example."

Relatable from 2018, DeGeneres' first stand-up special in 15 years, showed she still had the chops—and cracking wise is usually part of the gig wherever she goes.

"I feel like you've all really gotten to know me over the past 17 years, I am an open book," DeGeneres said in accepting the Carol Burnett Award at the 2020 Golden Globes. "And I couldn't have done it without my husband, Mark. Mark, you are my rock. Thank you for supporting me through this crazy journey. I know it wasn't easy for you—or the kids. Rupert and Fiona, go to bed, I love you...That's funny, 'cause they're in college now."

The room loved it, and de Rossi—who has been paid tribute to from a stage more times than she can count—laughed heartily along with everyone else.

On David Letterman's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction in 2019, DeGeneres called her wife "fantastic."

"She's very, very funny. She makes me laugh, which is really important." When she started getting ready for her first stand-up special in over 15 years, the comedian said, de Rossi was entirely supportive and even gave her notes after every performance.

As for the split rumors, DeGeneres chose to view them in a positive light.

"The divorce rumors came and then we really knew the perceptions had changed," she told Letterman. "I'm not kidding. I know it sounds ridiculous, but when that started happening, I thought, 'Oh, now we're finally accepted.' We get the same s--t as every celebrity couple.'

"I thought, 'Wow, this is great that I'm pregnant, not pregnant, divorced, not divorced, whatever. That means there is an acceptance for this."

(Originally published Jan. 24, 2018, at 6 a.m. PT; updated on Aug. 16, 2019, at 3 a.m. PT)

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