Are We Sure Ellen DeGeneres Isn’t Leaving the Country Over Her Netflix Special?

Unlike the last time a certain someone got elected, a few celebrities are making good on their promise to vacate the United States this time around. Eva Longoria is in Europe, happy to “escape” this “dystopian” country although she’s doing some “Not because of Trump, though!” damage control this week. And Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are selling their California home in favor of a move to a rural but ritzy area of Great Britain. 

The reason? TMZ says the couple was “very disillusioned” by Trump’s win and decided it was time “to get the hell out.”

The election sure makes a convenient excuse for DeGeneres to pack her bags for a permanent European vacation. But what if the bigger motivator is the chorus of boos that greeted her comeback special, For Your Approval? For someone who claimed to no longer need our praise, acceptance and unconditional love, she sure seemed to be begging for it in her Netflix hour. 

For Your Approval was DeGeneres’ chance to convince America that it had unfairly disposed of the formerly popular talk show host. Surely once she explained that her stained reputation was unjust, America would come to its senses and once again consider her “the person I’d most trust to babysit my child.” Unfortunately for the comic, the special seemed to have the opposite effect.

Cracked called her performance “unapologetic, unrelatable and totally insufferable,” but why take our word for it? Everyone else with a keyboard piled on as well. “A wishy-washy hour that asks us to care about DeGeneres again, without giving us any reason to in the first place,” said Paste. “A jokey non-apology that offers little in the way of vulnerability or insight,” agreed Vanity Fair. “If Ellen still cares what we think,” said Salon, “her 70 minutes of stand-up might have been better spent by actually grappling with her peccadilloes, rather than using them to fan the flames of her own ego.”

The special was a belly flop, earning DeGeneres exactly the opposite of the validation she was looking for. It can’t be easy shopping for organic guacamole at Trader Joe’s in Montecito, knowing that your fellow shoppers are giving you the side-eye for that embarrassing Netflix display. She’s already tried going dark for a couple of years — time didn’t seem to heal the wounds either. An escape to the English countryside must seem appealing right about now.

But a word of warning from one Rotten Tomatoes user who logged on today, letting DeGeneres know life might not be any better on the other side of the pond. “Her comedy in America is subpar, but here in the U.K., it’s awful. Why is she here?” wrote an anonymous poster. “She’s going to have a cultural shock when she finds out we have workers’ rights over here. We don’t approve, and instead of being a comeback, it’s more like beating a vile horse.”