Even if you wanted to (though I can’t understand why you’d want to), you can’t get away from Ellen DeGeneres these days. She’s on TV nine hours a week, and one magazine or another is always putting her on the cover. This month it’s Shape, who talked to her about body image, CoverGirl, American Idol and how Portia would rather have her “heavier than thinner.”
About Portia, she said:
She loves me no matter what. Whenever I feel bad about myself, or if I’m in a period where I’m not working out, she’s constantly telling me that she doesn’t notice, that I look beautiful. She’ll say, ‘I think you could gain 10 more pounds.’ She would rather have me heavier than thinner, and she really hates that I ever doubt myself. She loves how I look. She wants me to be happy and never think about it.
About being a CoverGirl:
It’s the most flattering thing, but I didn’t look at that as, ‘Oh, my God, only pretty girls get that!’ I thought it was another opportunity to be a great example, to be 52 years old, representing what some women look like.
About American Idol:
I want to be honest, and I want to be compassionate. Just doing Hollywood week [where the number of contestants was winnowed from 181 to 24], it was so hard to say to some of them that they weren’t good enough. They think they are, and I know what that’s like. I’d audition to be on Letterman or Carson, and I wouldn’t get it, and I’d realize I was so nervous, I just wasn’t ready. That’s the one thing I bring to that panel. I know what it feels like to be onstage trying to please an audience – and to be rejected.
Ellen talked to Shape about how she and Portia work out with a Yogi – not a yoga instructor – every morning, and about their decision to live a vegan lifestyle (which stems from her compassion from animals). She also said that while she was happier than she ever had been in her life, but that she could see herself retiring in ten years time, and try to spend her life doing “not much of anything.”
She deserves it. She’s working two full-time jobs as it is.
“I want to just trust whatever’s coming to me, that if it feels good to me, I’m going to do it,” she said. “Right now, I think I’m absolutely where I’m supposed to be.”
Apparently where she’s supposed to be is everywhere.
Fine by me.
