Culture

Ellen DeGeneres is celebrating a big birthday this week, and fans can’t believe her age

By Lewis Corner

24th January 2018

Get your party hats ready, because Ellen DeGeneres is celebrating a big birthday this Friday (26 January).

The chat show host revealed that she will turn 60 later this week, and her followers on Twitter didn’t quite believe her at first.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be 60 this week!” Ellen tweeted. “I love rating your babies but this week I want to rate the 60 year olds in your life.”

Many fans sent in pictures of the 60-year-old loved ones, but there was more than a handful of people stunned by the revelation that Ellen is about to celebrate the big 6-0.

Related: Here’s why Ellen DeGeneres won’t invite Donald Trump onto her show…

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Last year marked the 20th anniversary of Ellen coming out in both her personal life and on her hugely popular sitcom.

She also celebrated the 15th season of her chat show, and spoke to Ryan Seacrest on air about how views have changed since the 90s – and how difficult it was to be openly gay back then.

“This was a show that nobody wanted to buy,” she explained. “They really didn’t think anyone would watch a lesbian during the day and, at the time, no one wanted to see a lesbian at night either. So I was really out of options.”

Ellen also revealed that there was one word she was told never to say – “we”.

“I remember there was something that happened to my finger, and I was in a relationship and I was going to say ‘we’ and they wouldn’t let me say ‘we’ because somebody would all of a sudden picture a woman in my life,” she recalled.

Despite having already come out on the cover of TIME Magazine in April 1997, and having publicly dated actress Anne Heche, producers were still concerned about the effect her sexuality would have on the show.”

Ellen, however, proved all her doubters wrong as she’s now one of the richest TV personalities in the world, with a salary of $69 million and a wildly successful show that’s loved around the world.

She was even awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Obama last year – all while being an out gay woman.