Ellen DeGeneres abruptly cancels four stand-up shows

Comedian and TV star Ellen DeGeneres has abruptly cancelled four of her live shows this week, shortly after beginning her Ellen’s Last Stand... Up tour in June.

An announcement on the Ticketmaster website confirmed that shows scheduled in July and August for Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle and Chicago had all been cancelled.

The cancelled Dallas show was due to take place next week, on 10 July.

“Unfortunately, the Event Organiser has had to cancel your event,” the ticketing company said in a statement to its website.

“You don’t need to do a thing. We’ll issue a refund to the original method of payment used at time of purchase, as soon as funds are received from the Event Organiser. It should appear on your account within 14-21 days.”

The Independent has contacted DeGeneres’s representatives for comment.

Her other scheduled shows in San Francisco, Seattle and Chicago are still due to take place,The Hollywood Reporter reports.

Ellen’s Last Stand... Up marks the embattled comedian’s first live tour since the end of her daytime talk show, Ellen, in 2022.

The programme, which over the years had hosted celebrity guests including Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, Octavia Spencer and Daniel Radcliffe, was cancelled following claims of a toxic work environment in 2020.

In April, DeGeneres spoke about how the “devastating” bullying accusations had impacted her marriage to wife of 16 years, Portia de Rossi.

“I’m making jokes about what happened to me, but it was devastating,” she told her audience at an early Ellen’s Last Stand... Up tour in Los Angeles.

“It took a long time for me to want to do anything again.”

She admitted that the “funk” she was in began to affect her relationship with the Arrested Development star as she claimed she struggled to leave their home during the “hard time”.

“She was watching it happen to me... she went through it with me,” DeGeneres said.

Also during the performance, DeGeneres joked about the controversy and said she was “kicked out of show business” for being “mean”.

SFGatereported that she repeated the joke at a show in Santa Rosa this week, adding: “I am many things, but I am not mean.”

She apparently noted that having her show axed was the second time she’d been kicked out of show business, the first being in 1997 when she came out as a lesbian.

“Next time, I’ll be kicked out for being old. Old, gay and mean, the triple crown,” she reportedly joked, while also commenting on the different ways male and female bosses are viewed.

“I can be demanding and impatient and tough. I am a strong woman,” she said. “I am many things, but I am not mean.”