Ellen DeGeneres has detailed her experience with covid after testing positive for the potentially-deadly virus before Christmas when she was forced to cancel her show.
The TV host, 62, returned for her first show of the New Year this week and told viewers she slept for 16 hours a day and experienced extreme back pain.
Ellen insisted she is ‘all good now’ and thanked her fans for their support and kind messages while she was struggling with the condition.
Feeling better: Ellen DeGeneres has detailed her experience with covid after testing positive for the potentially-deadly virus before Christmas when she was forced to cancel her show
Discussing her plight, Ellen said: ‘There’s a lot of negativity going on so I thought we’d talk about something positive, my covid test. I tested positive before the holidays, I’m all good now.
‘I want to thank everyone who reached out with kind words of support. I wish I could have hugged all of you, but that would have been dangerous and illegal.’
Ellen then addressed the audience, who should have attended her 12 Days of Giveaways special before it was cancelled, and said: ‘Thank you to the audience who have come back, you were supposed to be In the audience in December but we had to cancel.’
Recovery: The TV host, 62, returned for her first show of the New Year this week and told viewers she slept for 16 hours a day and experienced extreme back pain (pictured while suffering from covid)
She revealed it was just before her show was due to film that she discovered she was positive for coronavirus, adding: ‘I was getting ready for the show that you were supposed to be in, my extensions put in and my face powdered.
‘And my assistant Craig came in and said you’ve tested positive for coronavirus. Then everyone around me ran away. People really just get scared and ran, some have not been back since. I left immediately and everyone was informed.’
Ellen went on to discuss what her ordeal was like once returning home, where she lives with her wife of 12 years, Portia de Rossi.
‘Thank you’: Ellen insisted she is ‘all good now’ and thanked her fans for their support and kind messages while she was struggling with the condition
Discussing her plight, Ellen said: ‘There’s a lot of negativity going on so I thought we’d talk about something positive, my covid test. I tested positive before the holidays, I’m all good now’ (pictured with show guest Jake Tapper)
She joked: ‘Portia made me sleep in a different room on a different bed, because she wanted the raised car bed all to herself.
‘So for the first three days I slept for 16 hours a day, then the fourth day I woke up with back spasms so thought I’d pulled a muscle or slept funny.
‘But it persisted so the doctor put me on pain killers and muscle relaxers – jackpot! Finally this thing is paying off.
‘The pain killers didn’t help, it felt like I had cracked a rib. So they put me on a steroid pack, but they make you really speedy and edgy.’
She said: ‘I want to thank everyone who reached out with kind words of support. I wish I could have hugged all of you, but that would have been dangerous and illegal’ (pictured recently)
‘So I stayed on all of it, pain killers, muscle relaxers and steroids – not sure if that’s the best way, I’m not a doctor.’
‘I’m still on them, I find the relaxers helpful. I spoke to my brother and told him about the back pain, he had a friend with the same then and then I spoke to several other people. So now apparently back pain is a symptom of covid. Now you know! It’s the only symptom I had.
‘I started to feel better so I’m very fortunate and feeling okay now. I don’t know how I got it, I wear a mask and wash my hands, and only licked three door handles.
‘To the people struggling with the illness right now my heart goes out to them.’
Ellen used social media to make her announcement that she’d fallen victim to the highly contagious virus that has swept the globe over the last ten months.
‘Hi Everyone, I want to let you all know that I tested positive for Covid-19. Fortunately, I’m feeling fine right now,’ she wrote in a statement posted on Twitter.
‘Anyone who has been in close contact with me has been notified, and I am following all proper CDC guidelines,’ she added. ‘I’ll see you all again after the holidays. Please stay safe and healthy.’
Although Ellen typically tapes episodes of The Ellen Show at least a day in advance, the last episode before Christmas was a re-run of an episode that first ran on October 15.
It meant the cancellation of the final day of her well-known 12 Days of Giveaways holiday promotional series, which typically draws big sponsors and high ratings.
Last year, the promotion ran later in the season, and she broke for the holidays after airing the final day on December 23.
This year, the show is giving its daily gifts to frontline workers, first responders, medical workers, and families hardest impacted by the pandemic.
The host’s coronavirus diagnosis came just a day after a scathing Buzzfeed News article claimed that she was struggling to attract sponsors and A-list guests for this year’s holiday giveaway series – claims that were hotly disputed by Ellen’s camp.
A current employee of The Ellen Show told the outlet that the show’s giveaways segments had floundered in the wake of reports about the show’s ‘toxic’ workplace culture.
‘In a typical year, 12 Days of Giveaways is huge. We’ve basically claimed Christmas on daytime TV. When you think of Christmas on TV, you think of The Ellen Show,’ the employee said.
‘Everyone wants to be in the audience. Everyone wants the gifts. And so we line up all these crazy sponsors, and people love it. But this year, our ’12 Days’ is more condensed. We don’t have as many sponsors.’
Statement: Ellen posted this statement on social media announcing that she would break early for the holidays after testing positive for COVID-19
However, a source close to the show strenuously disputed the claims as inaccurate, telling DailyMail.com that the typical format, which often focuses on lavish trips and vacations, had to be radically changed due to the realities of the pandemic.
The show’s Season 18 guests have included Matthew McConaughey, Justin Bieber, Jane Fonda, Chance the Rapper, Kristen Bell and Orlando Bloom, among others.
Many guest appearances have been via video link due to the pandemic, but some have also been conducted in-studio.
Holed up: Ellen and wife her Portia de Rossi are seen in a holiday snap from Thanksgiving
The Buzzfeed article also cited a source close to the show who defended the Christmas promotion, saying that vacation giveaways were off the table in the pandemic.
‘There are travel restrictions and she’s giving gifts that are appropriate for the world right now,’ the source said.
‘Maybe it looks and feels differently, but that’s not a reflection on her or the business, but that’s directly impacted by the state of the world and the kind of show that’s being done now.’