Ellen DeGeneres, 68, just dropped $27 million on a "winter" mansion in Montecito, California. That's the same Montecito she dramatically fled in November 2024, the day after Donald Trump won the election, when she and wife Portia de Rossi decamped to a farmhouse in England's Cotswolds region and told everyone who'd listen that America was finished.
Twenty-seven million dollars is a lot of money for a "temporary" winter retreat. That sounds more like a home base purchase. Just saying.
It's become clear that the great celebrity exodus of 2024 has officially collapsed. DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell — the two loudest voices who swore Trump's America was uninhabitable — have both slunk back to the country they claimed to be leaving forever.
DeGeneres told broadcaster Richard Bacon the morning after the election that she and de Rossi simply looked at each other and said, "We're staying here," meaning England. "It's absolutely beautiful," she gushed about the Cotswolds. "Everything here is just better — the way animals are treated, people are polite."
But the polite Cotswolds neighbors apparently grew less polite. Locals reported tensions over the couple's property renovations, with residents frustrated that DeGeneres and de Rossi ignored local customs and planning sensitivities. One neighbor told reporters they hadn't seen DeGeneres "in ages."
So Ellen did what Ellen does. She bought her way out of the problem — a $27 million estate back in the same California zip code she'd sold out of in August 2024. Her Costwold farm is reportedly on the market. A source told Fox News "Ellen and Portia love the Cotswolds and can't wait to return to England." Sure they do. People who love the Cotswolds typically don't purchase eight-figure properties 5,000 miles away.
Comedian Rosie O'Donnell's escape was even more theatrical. The 64-year-old comedian packed up her teenage daughter and moved to Ireland just before Trump's January 2025 inauguration, vowing she wouldn't return until America was "safe for all citizens to have equal rights." By February 2026, she was back for a two-week visit, telling Chris Cuomo on SiriusXM that she "did not really tell anyone. I just went to see my family." She admitted the secrecy was because she was "worried" it would be "problematic" to re-enter the country.
That worry turned out to be unfounded. Nobody stopped her. Nobody cared. She walked right through customs like the 330 million other American citizens who are constitutionally entitled to do exactly that.
By June, O'Donnell wasn't even pretending to hide. She showed up at the 79th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 8, called Trump "a conman, a narcissist, and a psychopath," and then sat down with Marianne Williamson on June 20 for an interview in which she confirmed she was living in a New York apartment. "Right now, I'm in New York," she told Williamson, before insisting in the same breath, "But I have moved to Ireland, and that was my choice."
When her social media followers asked if she'd permanently returned, O'Donnell responded in all caps that it was nonsense — she'd only come back to meet her grandson and was "going back this weekend." That was weeks ago. She's still doing interviews from Manhattan. And she accepted a summer job covering hosting duties for Jimmy Kimmel on his late night TV show.
The White House, for its part, has been characteristically restrained. When O'Donnell first fled, spokesperson Abigail Jackson offered three words: "What great news for America!"
There's a pattern here that goes back decades. In 2000, Alec Baldwin swore he'd move to France if George W. Bush won. Bush won. Baldwin stayed. In 2016, a parade of celebrities promised to relocate if Trump beat Hillary Clinton. Trump beat Hillary Clinton. They all stayed. The only difference this time is that two of them actually got on a plane — and still couldn't make it stick for more than a year.
O'Donnell told Cuomo she felt "scary" energy while visiting the United States. DeGeneres's neighbors found her renovations scary. Both women are now spending considerable time in the country they publicly smeared, doing the things they always did, in the places they always did them. One is buying $27 million houses. The other is giving interviews from a New York apartment about how she definitely lives in Ireland.
The farewell tour was always the performance. The quiet return is the review.