We have certainly heard our fair share about Ellen DeGeneres in recent years. From her popularity pre-pandemic with her talk show to her downfall, she has been through the wringer.
Now that Ellen has gone back to comedy and has a popular show on Netflix, she has some news to share. The 66-year-old comedian opened up about the struggles she has had and a triple diagnosis that took place when she stepped away from show business.
She said: “I don’t even know how I’m standing up right now. I’m like a human sandcastle. I could disintegrate in the shower.”
Although we know she was joking, it was also a rather serious statement. She talked about her diagnosis with a condition known as osteoporosis, in which the bones become brittle. She talked about the ‘excruciating pain’ she experienced one day and thought she had a torn ligament.
She went in for an MRI and then was told that they thought she had arthritis. She talked about the challenges associated with getting older, saying: “It’s hard to be honest about aging and seem cool.”
Something else that she discussed was her struggles with mental health and she had to go in for therapy. In 2020, toxic marketplace allegations sent her in a downward spiral.
She said: “I may have OCD because a therapist said so and I said, ‘Yes I am very organized,’ because I thought that was the O. I didn’t know what OCD was.
“I was raised in a religion, Christian Science, that doesn’t acknowledge diseases or disorders. So when I was growing up, nobody talked about anything. There was no discussion of anything.”
Ellen feels that she may have inherited OCD because her father may have had it. She said: “He would check the doorknob 15 times before we’d leave, he’d check the faucet 15 times, he would unplug all the appliances before we left the house because lightning could strike and it could catch fire. They say it could be hereditary.”
Something else that she revealed she had been diagnosed with is ADHD. Most of us are familiar with this because of children having it, but it can affect adults as well. She went on to say:
“So, I have ADD, I have OCD, I’m losing my memory.
“But I think I’m well-adjusted because I obsess on things, but I don’t have the attention span to stick with it, and I quickly forget what I was obsessing about in the first place. So, it takes me all the way around to being well-adjusted, I think.”
She tries to keep a positive attitude on everything that takes place. She summed things up, saying: “When you’re a public figure, you’re open to everyone’s interpretation. And I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, ‘What other people think of me is none of my business.’ Because people will say all kinds of things and you have no control over that. But you know the truth and that’s all that matters.”