Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are marking their 16th wedding anniversary, and the occasion coincides with DeGeneres filming her upcoming Netflix comedy special.
“I’ll be celebrating my 16th wedding anniversary on August 16 in Minneapolis, filming my final Netflix special,” DeGeneres shared in an Instagram post.
The former talk show host, who embarked on a stand-up comedy tour in June, added, “What a day!!! I’m so lucky to be loved by the most amazing person I’ve ever met. I love you, Portia. You’re my everything.”
The couple’s relationship dates back to their first meeting backstage at a Rock the Vote concert in 2001. At that time, de Rossi had not publicly come out as a lesbian, but the connection between them was immediate.
In a 2021 interview, de Rossi recalled thinking, “She was the coolest, most fascinating, beautiful, funniest person I’d ever met.”
De Rossi discussed their journey to romance during a 2009 interview with Oprah Winfrey, revealing, “[I knew Ellen was the one for me] from the moment I first saw her.
But it took me three years to tell her how I felt because I was on Ally McBeal and not living openly as a gay person. I was terrified that acknowledging I was gay would end my career. So, I wasn’t ready to date the most famous lesbian in the world.”
Three years after their initial encounter, they reconnected at a 2004 photo shoot.
The chemistry remained, but both were in long-term relationships—DeGeneres with photographer Alexandra Hedison, and de Rossi with singer Francesca Gregorini. Once they ended those relationships, DeGeneres and de Rossi began dating.
DeGeneres reflected on this transition in a 2005 interview, saying, “She had a girlfriend, and I had a girlfriend, but it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, we’re going to have an affair.’
We were just meant to be together. It was a tough decision. I was physically getting sick from trying to keep it inside. So I told Alex, and she told Francesca. It was really hard to uproot everything.”
When same-sex marriage was legalized in California in 2008, DeGeneres and de Rossi got married in an intimate ceremony at their Los Angeles home.
Reflecting on their marriage in a 2009 interview, de Rossi described it as “a different way of being together.” She added, “There’s a peace to [being married] and a sense of togetherness that we didn’t have before. I didn’t realize how much it would change things, but it’s so lovely.”
