Going out with a bang: ‘Ellen DeGeneres Show’ final guests include Michelle Obama

Ellen DeGeneres is pulling out all of the movie star stops for the ultimate episodes of her daytime discuss sequence.

Former First Woman Michelle Obama, tennis phenom Serena Williams, veteran comic David Letterman and actuality TV star Kim Kardashian are only a few of the company set to seem on “The Ellen DeGeneres Present” forward of the sequence finale, Warner Bros. Tv Group introduced Wednesday. The final episode will air Could 26 on NBC.

Additionally on the itinerary are mannequin Behati Prinsloo and singers Gwen Stefani and Adam Levine, in addition to actors Jennifer Garner, Channing Tatum, Zac Efron, Diane Keaton and Portia de Rossi, the TV host’s spouse of 14 years. In keeping with Warner Bros., the returning company pays tribute to DeGeneres whereas reminiscing about their favourite moments on the present.

Since premiering in September 2003, “The Ellen DeGeneres Present” has aired greater than 3,200 episodes over 19 seasons and amassed a whopping 64 Daytime Emmy Awards. In Could 2021, almost a yr after staff of this system reported a poisonous work setting on set, DeGeneres introduced she could be ending her present.

The interior workers rebellion prompted a televised apology from DeGeneres and the firings of three high producers, in addition to a shift in public notion of the comedy hero, whose small-screen slogan is “Be type to 1 one other.” The Occasions has confirmed that DeGeneres not too long ago gave final-season bonuses to her workers primarily based on years of service.

“My entire being is about making folks joyful,” DeGeneres advised the Hollywood Reporter in 2021. “And with the discuss present, all I cared about was spreading kindness and compassion, and every little thing I stand for was being attacked. So, it destroyed me, actually. I’d be mendacity if I stated it didn’t.”

Regardless of the controversy, DeGeneres seems to have remained within the good graces of quite a lot of her well-known pals, a few of whom leapt to her protection final yr on social media. In current months, “The Ellen DeGeneres Present” has continued to draw large names, from Jennifer Lopez to Halle Berry.

When DeGeneres spoke to the Hollywood Reporter final yr about her plans for the longer term, . one other TV present wasn’t excessive on her checklist.

“A sitcom looks like a stroll within the park in comparison with this, 180 exhibits a yr. I don’t know if that’s actually what I need to do subsequent, however films for certain,” DeGeneres stated. “If there have been an incredible function, I’d be capable of do this, which I’m not in a position to do now.”