Portia de Rossi picks love over fear after living her life `closeted and terrified'

Portia De Rossi as Beth with Robyn Butler as Caroline on the set of Now Add Honey, now shooting in Melbourne. Picture: Roadshow Source: Supplied

Sally Bennett, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Actor Portia de Rossi hopes her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres is a good example for young gay Australians.

The Victorian-raised-LA-based actor said she went from being a young woman who was "closeted and terrified of being outed as gay" to being happily in love with an American talk-show queen.

"I just fell in love with somebody and I thought I'm going to take this over living in fear of my television career ending," de Rossi said of coming out.

"I choose her, I choose to be happy and it was the best decision that I have ever made. We are actually good role models in that we're a very ordinary happy couple."

The Arrested Development star was speaking in Melbourne this week where she is filming Now Add Honey, a New Australian film from the makers of The Librarians and Upper Middle Bogan.

The Roadshow comedy also stars Robyn Butler, Hamish Blake, Lucy Durack, Lucy Fry, Erik Thomson and Angus Sampson.

De Rossi, who married DeGeneres in California in 2008, said marriage equality was "so important" and that she hopes in happens in Australia soon.

"It really does make a huge difference and it really does validate you, not only as a gay person in your relationship, but as a human being," she said.

"It's hard to explain the impact that just one person coming out can have on your life as a gay person if you're a teenager," she said.

"If you're watching the news and you know that the news anchor is gay, all of a sudden you think, maybe I could be a journalist, or maybe I could be a model, or an actress or a school teacher or a football player. It makes a huge difference."

De Rossi is flying solo for this three-week work trip and said she and DeGeneres were overwhelmed by the love and support they were shown during their March visit.

"It was crazy, it was great, but it was just surreal though," she said of the huge crowds that greeted them in Melbourne.

"It was like, this is my hometown, what is happening? And of course, I'd been telling her all this time, come to Australia and everyone will leave you alone.

"It was announced on her show (The Ellen DeGeneres Show) so I knew it was going to be a different thing, but I do actually think that if we came, just the two of us, that people would be respectful."

The release date for Now Add Honey is yet to be announced.

Delta Goodrem and Michael Bolton perform on Ellen DeGeneres Show

Delta Goodrem and Michael Bolton are performing a song together on The Ellen Show tomorrow. Source: Supplied

Briana Domjen, The Daily Telegraph, reports

It pays to have one of the world’s greatest musicians as your mentor when you’re trying to crack Hollywood.

Michael Bolton is helping Delta Goodrem make it big in the States.

Thanks to the Grammy Award winning artist, Goodrem is set to appear on The Ellen DeGeneres show tomorrow afternoon.

The Australian singer wrote a song titled 'I'm Not Ready' that was recorded as a duet for Michael Bolton's DUETS album released in 2011 which saw her perform for US audiences on Dancing with the Stars and the Today Show.

So impressed with The Voice judge, Bolton has again invited her to record 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' - which she will perform with Bolton on DeGeneres’s show at 12pm tomorrow.

"It is always such fun working with Michael and recording 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' in LA together gave me so much joy,” Goodrem said.

"Michael has such an incredible voice and I am really proud to have made his Australian release of his album.

"I loved meeting Ellen and was so proud of the profile that Ellen's visit to Australia gave our country internationally. She is an inspiring woman".

Sydney puts a spring in Ellen DeGeneres' step

Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi feed the giraffes at Taronga Zoo in Sydney for her TV talkshow in the US. Picture: Adam Taylor Source: News Limited

Simon Black, Holly Byrnes and Alice Coote, The Daily Telegraph, report

In comedy, as in politics, timing is everything. Even accounting for her delayed arrival, Ellen DeGeneres was undoubtedly the most popular woman in Australia yesterday, given the kind of public reception PM Julia Gillard can only dream about.

Such is the TV favourite's appeal, DeGeneres and her Aussie posse, including Geelong-born wife Portia and mum Betty, was mobbed from the moment she danced her way through Sydney Airport's arrivals hall to her first brush with our wildlife on the tourism trail.

Shaking off jet lag and the lurgy which forced her first visit to Sydney and Melbourne to be postponed by a week, the 55-year-old hit the ground running. She shunned a secret VIP arrival and chose instead to stroll down the public entrance into Sydney Airport, holding hands with Portia.

The Emmy-winner was welcomed by thousands of fans and the Qantas choir, who set the tone for the celebratory trip ahead, which DeGeneres will use to acquaint herself with her wife's home country and those devoted to her brand of positivity and fun.

Instead of a luxury yacht or speed boat for a trip to Taronga Zoo, the Ellen show boarded the Borrowdale - a 1985 steel twin catamaran owned and operated by Sydney Ferries Corporation.

With no time to waste, on a schedule abbreviated after her illness last week, the Harbour cruise doubled as a cultural lesson for the American visitors, treated to a traditional welcome to country ceremony by indigenous deckhand Tracy Keys.

At the zoo, Ellen headed to the koala enclosure before excited fans caught another glimpse of the star as she fed the zoo's four giraffes.

The group of 40 Ellen fans, who had won a competition run by Destination NSW and The Sunday Telegraph to spend the day touring Sydney on the official fan bus, joined up with the star at the zoo. Not missing her chance to hitch her wagon to a brighter star, PM Gillard also got in on the act, tweeting: "Welcome to Australia @TheEllenShow. Hope you get to see as much as possible of our beautiful country."

DeGeneres picked up the local lingo quickly, tweeting her mock take on Sydney's coffee addiction: "I'm learning Australian. For coffee, you can get a flat white, a long black or a bad bad Leroy Brown. OK, maybe not the last one."

Local fans first got their opportunity to play an official part in Ellen's TV adventure on Saturday during filming of an abridged version of her chat show on the edge of Sydney's Botanic Gardens.

A makeshift stage, purpose-built for the new season of the opera Carmen, was converted overnight to accommodate the production.

Destination NSW chief Sandra Chipchase said The Ellen Show's diverse audience (not to mention her global Twitter following of 17.7 million fans) had the potential to deliver better outcomes than the Oprah experience, which failed to convert exposure into visitors.

Channel 9 has high hopes for Ellen exclusive

Channel 9's Tracy Grimshaw on the set of The Ellen Show with Ellen DeGeneres. Picture: 9 Channel Source: Supplied

The Daily Telegraph reports

Channel 9 is banking on a major exclusive with Ellen DeGeneres to gazump rival Today Tonight in the early rounds of the primetime ratings race.

Filmed under a cloak of secrecy after A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw was whisked away on a two-day trip to Los Angeles last week, the sit-down interview is being hyped as a "must see" by Nine with producers to air it uninterrupted over 16 minutes tonight - more than half the show's full running time.

The move has left TT "scrambling", according to media sources, for a story to pit against the much-loved talkshow queen.

TT has undergone an overhaul this year, including the well-received introduction of new host Helen Kapalos, and pushed through a disappointing start to consistently eclipse ACA.

Nine, meanwhile, promised DeGeneres will cover subjects she has previously not touched upon.

DeGeneres revealed her decision to come out as a lesbian on her sitcom Ellen in 1997 almost bankrupted her.

"I was so mad that I lost my show, and not just my show but for three years I didn't have any offers," she says. "I mean literally the phone did not ring for three years and I had no money and then you know it was actually ... I am very grateful for that time."

Grimshaw said she was worried how the talk would go.

"I was concerned she would be playing more to them than me, but she couldn't have been more engaging," she said.

TT has taken the lead in the 6.30pm slot in the official ratings season.

Sonia's dry run for Ellen

TV presenter Sonia Kruger. Picture: Tim Hunter Source: The Sunday Telegraph

Debbie Schipp, The Sunday Telegraph, reports

Sonia Kruger will host Ellen DeGeneres' first official function when the US talk-show queen hits Australia next month, but it'll be a dry affair for Kruger.

The Mornings presenter will steer clear of the cocktails thanks to a new year detox.

The event, at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne, will be the welcoming party for DeGeneres who'll record segments for her show here.

Kruger admits she's anxious about the gig but won't be calming the nerves with a drink. "It makes me more nervous than the launch night of Big Brother because she is so fabulous. We all love Ellen," she says.

"I think I'm going to keep it straight, but I'd love to get a bit of groove on with Ellen.

"If I don't feel better at the end of (the detox), I am never doing it again."

With MasterChef judge George Calombaris catering, the party's food should suit Kruger's health kick, as well as DeGeneres and wife Portia de Rossi, who are strict vegans.

At 47, Kruger has a body most women half her age would kill for and confesses she hardly exercises.

"It's from years of dancing. I'm lucky if I walk the dog." She enjoys doing Zumba, hip-hop and jazz, but struggles to make it a regular commitment.

Kruger is back co-hosting Mornings with David Campbell on Nine from tomorrow and will again call the shots on Big Brother this year. She says Mornings is planning a more "magazine" style format for 2013.

"I think now there are a lot of opportunities for morning television to fill in the gaps. We are going to try to do a few more outside broadcasts this year. To do a bit more out of Queensland and also get down to Melbourne when the opportunity presents itself."

Cheesy TV comes with Ellen fever

Ellen DeGeneres

The Daily Telegraph reports

We’re polishing our Down Under Dance moves for Ellen DeGeneres's March arrival, just as we wept, and screamed and hollered for Oprah Winfrey when she brought her American audience to Australia in 2010.

Yes, even in a country known for its laconic, laid-back attitude to life, we seemingly cannot get enough of the cheesiness and cringe-inducing moments that's all part of the Ellen and Oprah talk shows.

I should know.

When I went on the set of The Ellen Show last month with a bunch of other typically, cynical hard-nosed Australian journalists, I not only found myself hugging the person next to me but we danced so much in our seats that we almost worked up a sweat.

So if we can all take to the female talk-show formula so much, why don't we have an Australian Ellen or Oprah?

For a long time it seemed that Kerri-Anne Kennerley would take that mantle until her morning show became stale and overrun by advertorials.

Recently it seemed that the Seven Network would help to revitalise her until it was announced last week that her yet-to-be announced project had been put on hold.

Australia even had its own successful talk show queen in former Playschool presenter, Trish Goddard.

But that didn't happen for her until she returned to the UK where she now hosts her hot talk show, The Trish Goddard Show, on Channel 5.

Sonia Kruger, who will host a welcome party for Ellen in Melbourne, is another contender.

The Mornings presenter who also endeared herself to many by hosting Big Brother on 9, is hugely likable, funny and glamorous, but would she be able to lay open her soul the way that Oprah does?

That leaves Chrissie Swan, who has recently endured a trial by media when she was snapped smoking while pregnant. Swan currently hosts Can Of Worms and has already won a 2011 Logie for Best New Female Talent.

It would certainly be unfortunate if Australians could only get excited by American talk show talent. This would mean that the cultural cringe is well and truly back.

Surely we have moved on much too far for that.

Aussie winners to head to LA

These two Aussies were picked to fly to LA for the Ellen Show. Picture: Katrina Tepper Source: The Daily Telegraph

TV talk show queen Ellen DeGeneres to fly Aussies to LA

Ellen DeGeneres fans wait on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. Picture: Bill Hearne Source: The Daily Telegraph

 

Leigh van den Broeke, Holly Byrnes and Ian Walker, The Daily Telegraph, report

If the early bird catches the worm two of these fans are a good chance of jet-setting off to Los Angeles for The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Dozens of Ellen fans massed on the steps of the Sydney Opera House overnight after the talk show host announced two lucky people will win a free trip to see her show in the US.

In typical Ellen fashion, there was plenty of singing and dancing to pass the time until the winners are announced during a live cross about 10am this morning.

"There was nobody here when I first got here (at 5pm yesterday),'' Christian Burke, 22, from Liverpool said. "I thought I was the only idiot, (however) some people started showing up about 10.30pm.''

Mr Burke rushed to the Opera House after a job interview, but if he's not lucky enough to win a ticket to LA he has a plan to introduce Ellen to some culture Down Under.

"I've started a Facebook page for an Aussie Backyard Barbecue for Ellen DeGeneres,'' he said. "If she won't give me tickets to her show she can at least come around for a barbecue.''

DeGeneres is set to go one better than former TV rival Oprah Winfrey's Australian adventure - by today surprising two lucky Australian fans with a free trip back to see her US chat show.

"(Tuesday's) a big day, Australia. If you're near the Sydney Opera House you may wanna pack a bag and get your passport ready. Seriously," she teased her Twitter followers.

Upping the stakes, ahead of nte Ahead of her first visit to the birth country of her wife, Portia De Rossi, DeGeneres teased her Twitter followers with the prize.

She urged local fans to bring their passports and luggage to a live cross with her producers from the Opera House.

About a dozen Ellen show crew flew into Melbourne on Saturday night, then on to Sydney on Sunday, after a day in Melbourne, to begin scouting for locations for the host's Oz odyssey.

The producers and the show's "street reporter" Jeannie yesterday toured Circular Quay, took a Sydney BridgeClimb and enjoyed lunch at Cafe Sydney before settling on the upper level of the Opera House for today's 11am live cross.

The "surprise" will see two fans join the production crew on their flight home to Hollywood the same day, with co-sponsor Qantas helping to fast-track any visa requirements with the help of immigration officials.

DeGeneres later added last night on Twitter: "Before I go Down Under, someone in Sydney's gonna have a chance to come up over. I hope you're free tomorrow at 9:30am." Ellen tweeted.

The TV trek is part of the US market launch of Australian wellness company, Swisse, with global brand ambassador Nicole Kidman helping announce the special giveaway to studio guests during a taping earlier this month.

Each of the 400 audience members won holidays to Australia which they can choose to take at their leisure or when DeGeneres visits.

The popular presenter and her Melbourne-born actor wife Portia are expected in Australia from March 17, when DeGeneres says they will "do tape pieces and meet the fans and hang out."

NSW tourism officials are also hoping to capitalise on the opportunity to promote local destinations to the show's international audience.

Local fans keen to try their luck during the live cross are advised to be at the western boardwalk of the Opera House no later than 10am today.

Eleanor Harrison, 30, from Quakers Hill will be armed with a packed suitcase and her passport.

She said she was devoted to the show since becoming a stay-at-home mum.

"I love her. Her show makes me laugh and smile every day and it keeps me sane with three toddlers," Eleanor said.

"It would be life changing if I won, it would be amazing."

Getting into the spirit of things, Ellen fans did The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph's Down Under Dance on top of one of the most iconic Aussie landmarks - the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Sydney BridgeClimb staff, clad in blonde wigs, and celebrity choreographer Adam Williams showed off the exclusive dance designed for boogie-loving Ellen for when she arrives in Australia.

Organised by the Sunday Telegraph and put together by choreographer to the stars Adam Williams, the dance includes moves that mimic boxing kangaroos and walking on hot sand at Bondi beach.

"We dived right in and did our best moves on top of The Bridge and it was so much fun. The wind was ideal for the Ellen hair," Williams said.

Manly Sea Life Sanctuary staff have been filmed doing the dance underwater while TV host Kerri-Anne Kennerley turned out with a troupe of 150 young dancers and celebrities like Justice Crew to urge Ellen to do the Down Under Dance, especially created for her.

The episode featuring the Sydney cross is expected to air locally on Channel 9 and Foxtel tomorrow.

First Oprah. Now Ellen

Big surprise ... Nicole Kidman and Ellen DeGeneres talk Australia.

Shelly Horton, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

American talk show host Ellen DeGeneres is coming to Australia and so are 400 of her excited audience members.

On a show, taped in the US today, DeGeneres announced the audience would be going on a holiday to Australia. But it won't be like the Oprah trip, when the star and the audience travelled here together and became part of the show.

The Ellen DeGeneres Show will not be recorded in Australia. Instead, she will film segments in Sydney and Melbourne to be played on her program at a later date. The audience each received an airline ticket to travel to Sydney or Melbourne on any date in the next 12 months with six nights' accommodation at a four-star hotel.

When the announcement was made, Nicole Kidman was a surprise guest on the show, with the audience believing she was there to talk about her Golden Globe and Screen Actors' Guild nominations.

Instead she spoke to DeGeneres about her children and Australia, including a rendition of a kookaburra call.

DeGeneres' wife, Australian actress, Portia de Rossi is from Victoria but DeGeneres has never visited the country.

Kidman suggested she visit Kununurra in outback Australia. "When I was filming the movie Australia I was swimming in the water there and that's when I got pregnant, which was a miracle. I think those watering holes are magical."

DeGeneres laughed, "Well if I go swimming there and get pregnant it would be a miracle!"

Jennifer Mertus, 39, from Hunting Beach was seeing The Ellen DeGeneres Show as a present. "This is my 40th birthday present from my best friend so now you can say she gave me a trip to Australia for my 40th. I've never been to Australia but I've been dying to go. My husband is an avid surfer so we'll go and surf. And I want to see a koala bear."

After the show DeGeneres said, ‘‘So, I am actually for the first time in my life going to Australia … I’m going in March and I’m going to shoot a bunch of stuff in Melbourne and Sydney. We’re going to do tape pieces and meet the fans and hang out."

The Ellen DeGeneres Show's visit to Australia is part of a promotional deal with Swisse and Qantas. Shelly Horton was a guest of the two companies in Los Angeles.

Life's still a beach for Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi

Portia de Rossi and her wife Ellen DeGeneres. / Pic: Getty Images Source: Getty Images

 

The Daily Telegraph reports

The queen of daytime TV Ellen DeGeneres and her Australian actress wife Portia de Rossi opted for a white sand Christmas this year.

The happy couple were captured taking a morning stroll down St Jeans beach in the celeb holiday island haven of St Barts, near Puerto Rico in the French West Indies.

Having spent the whole festive season in the Caribbean, the pair was seen having lunch at Eden Rock restaurant.

They also shopped in Hermes earlier in the week and DeGeneres, 54, reportedly bought a ring from Cartier.

The two celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary this year, with DeGeneres hiring a sky writer to write "four" in the sky.

As usual, the pair are not the only A-listers in the area at this time of year.

Stylist Rachel Zoe hit the beach with husband Rodger and son Skyler in St Barts on Christmas Eve, while Jennifer Aniston and fiance Justin Theroux soaked up the sun in Mexico.