Ellen DeGeneres is officially calling it quits.
The comedian and host of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” which ended in 2022, is currently on a 27-stop farewell tour. She told audiences at the Santa Rosa leg of her tour on July 3 that the tour really was farewell.
“This is the last time you’re going to see me. After my Netflix special, I’m done,” she said July 3, according to SFGate.
When an audience member asked if she would reprise her role as Dory in “Finding Nemo,” she held firm.
“No, I’m going bye-bye, remember,” she said.
The tour, and her remarks, comes almost four years after Warner Media launched an investigation into her talk show for an allegedly toxic work environment.
The investigation was sparked by a 2020 Buzzfeed exposé in which one employee and 10 former staffers of DeGeneres’ show said they faced “racism, fear and intimidation” behind-the-scenes.
DeGeneres was not specifically called out in the article, but the incidents were at odds with the show’s feel-good atmosphere.
Following an internal investigation, three executive producers departed from the show in August 2020. She announced, in May 2021, the show would end after its 19th season.
During her recent set in Santa Rosa, DeGeneres referred to the fallout, saying, “Oh yeah, and I got kicked out of show business for being mean.”
In an interview with NBC's "Today" show in March 2021, DeGeneres said she wasn’t aware of her show’s problems until reading about them in the media, and called herself a “kind person.”
“I don’t know how I could have known when there’s 225 employees here and there are a lot of different buildings,” she told Savannah Guthrie in an exclusive interview. “Unless I actually stayed here until that last person goes home at night.”
“I really did think about not coming back, because it was devastating. It started with attacks on me and attacking everything that I stand for and believe in and built my career around ... I am a kind person. I am a person who likes to make people happy,” she added.
DeGeneres said she will address the scandal in a comedy special set to come out on Netflix later this year.
“Here we go! To answer the questions everyone is asking me — Yes, I’m going to talk about it. Yes this is my last special. Yes, Portia really is that pretty in real life,” she said on Instagram.
During the California set, DeGeneres characterized her personality not as “mean,” but as “tough.”
“I can be demanding and impatient and tough. I am a strong woman,” she told the audience. “I am many things, but I am not mean.”