Ellen DeGeneres is bidding farewell to comedy — but not before one final moment on stage. DeGeneres’s very last act, the stand-up special Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval which premiered globally on Netflix on Sept. 24, closes another chapter in her long career of making us laugh. The curtain is closing, it’s time to clear the room — or in Ellen’s case, dance down the stairs. “Some of you may be thinking, why is she doing this? Does she owe back taxes?” she quips in the first five minutes.

But before this comedy legend heads out, she has summoned her inimitable stand-up talent — which had taken a back seat in recent years (that is, other than her previous acclaimed Netflix special, 2018’s Relatable) — to laugh at, well, all of it: being “kicked out of show business,” what kind of boss she is, and what it’s like to own chickens, of course. Plus an exciting bit about the embarrassments of parallel parking, and facing the truth serum of Portia de Rossi. Read on for some highlights from For Your Approval. 

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Ellen on raising chickens.

If you came here just for Ellen discussing her stardom being upended, she’s ready to serve you some hard-hitting, real-life nuggets. Sure, worrying about all of America’s adoration is one thing, but … have you ever tried raising chickens? “Chickens are the best birds to have at home,” Ellen says. “People think parrots, but they’re so gossipy. Chickens will never talk.” 

“Did you know that chickens dream? Scientists have discovered that chickens dream,” she says, adding, “Now listen, I love animals more than anyone, but I think we can take the scientists working on chicken dreams and move them over to climate change.”

As she ponders what else to talk about other than chickens, she pulls out a little note from her pocket, reads it intently and goes, “Oh yeah, and I got kicked out of show business.”

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Ellen on getting kicked out.

Ellen leans into discussing her controversial 2020 backlash, stating that she was called “the most hated person in America.” But, she adds, “there was no awards ceremony, no banquet — nothing.” Though, she says she made a sash to wear around her house. She states that she was once polled as the most trusted celebrity to look after a child. “Because when you think good with kids, you immediately think childless, lesbian, stand-up comedian? But once they heard that I might be mean, they didn’t want me to babysit anymore, so it wasn’t all bad.”

This is the crux of her special: Getting kicked out — and not for the first time — but realizing that she does really care what people think of her.  “I used to say I don’t care what people think of me,” she recalls of her early, shielded self. “I realize now, looking back, I said that at the height of my popularity.” She did add, though, “I did used to do Botox and filler … back when I didn’t care what people thought of me.”

Ellen on coming out and her first comeback. 

DeGeneres isn’t exactly new to being dismissed at the height of her fame. The OG Ellen was a hugely popular sitcom that ran from 1994 to 1998. But, what happened toward the end of those years? “For those keeping score, this is the second time I was kicked out of show business,” DeGeneres reminds her audience. “They kicked me out before because I told them I was gay — can’t be gay in show business.” Ellen, both character and person, came out by the time “The Puppy Episode” of her sitcom aired on April 30, 1997. The ratings surged high, but rapidly declined and the show was eventually canceled.

While Ellen’s coming-out moment is now revered as groundbreaking for gay celebrities, at the time it wasn’t treated as such. And now she’s able to joke about what it was like to be turned away for her sexuality at the time: “Listen, we don’t like all of you either, but we don’t make a big thing of it.” 

She also addressed the suggestion that watching her talk show would “turn people gay.” But “you had to work there. You had to fill out a W-2.” According to Ellen, 16 employees of the show “started out as straight and by the time they left, were gay. You don’t see Jimmy Kimmel doing those kinds of numbers.”

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Ellen on “being kind” and the Ellen show.

As fans remember, the Ellen show ended each day with her saying “be kind to one another.” And DeGeneres doesn’t take a cop-out for getting slammed in the press. “The ‘be kind’ girl wasn’t kind — that was the headline,” she says of the press reaction in 2020. But perhaps if she had used a different ending line, we’d be in a very different place: “Had I ended my show by saying, ‘Go fuck yourselves,’ people would’ve been pleasantly surprised to find out I’m kind.”

But she also acknowledges how some office hijinks could be, let’s say, wildly misconstrued. “I started a game of tag in 2016,” DeGeneres recalls. “I would chase [employees] all over the studio, I would scare them because I loved to do that.” Then a distinct pause. “You know, hearing myself say this out loud … I was chasing my employees and terrorizing them … I can see how that would be misinterpreted.”

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Ellen on women playing air guitar.

Ellen’s career has been marked by her groundbreaking moves not just as a gay woman, but as a woman in comedy. She discusses how a lot of women from her generation were raised to be people pleasers. “I was taught to be small and quiet and agreeable. Most women aren’t raised with confidence — we’re just too self-conscious — which is why you rarely see a woman playing air guitar.” 

Ellen then proceeds to play air guitar onstage, before adding, “A man in the middle of nowhere, and for no reason, can practice an imaginary golf swing. They’ll jump up and see if they can slap the top of a doorframe — I’ve never had that urge,” she says, musing, “Look at that door frame! Tiffany hold my purse, I’m gonna give it a try.”

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Ellen on getting older and being happy.

DeGeneres wonders if she’ll get canceled for a third time for “being old” making her a triple threat: “old, gay, mean.” At 66, she says she’s ready for menus to have reading lights, and wishes doctors would stop calling her in for check-ups when there’s nothing wrong with her. She discusses how her mom, who has dementia, is also aging. “My whole life was wrapped up in my show, and my mother’s whole identity was being Ellen’s mom, and now I don’t have a show and she doesn’t know she’s my mom — she just thinks I’m a nice lady that goes to visit her, or there’s a good chance she thinks I’m Kelly Ripa.”

Ellen assures her audience, however, that both she and her mom are happy “and that’s all that matters.” She also says, as she takes her final bow, that she doesn’t want to be remembered as someone who is mean, but as someone who is beloved. Before leaving the stage, her wife Portia de Rossi comes onstage to show Ellen support on their anniversary. She closes out with, “This is a night I will always remember.”