Ellen DeGeneres has been a gay icon for decades now, and the talk show host has marked Pride Month with a touching video featuring many LGBT celebrities who have opened up to her over the years.
In the video, she talks with Orpah Winfrey about her own experience:
Your true legacy, the real work that you’ve done on the planet, will be teaching people how to live authentically as themselves.”
Winfrey appeared on the landmark episode of DeGeneres’ sitcom Ellen in 1997 when her fictional character of Ellen Morgan came out. At the same time, DeGeneres herself came out on the cover of Time magazine.
Then there her meeting with Ellen Page, were DeGeneres chats about her coming out moment at a GLAAD event in Las Vegas in 2014 before a large crowd.
Page recalls:
I think my biggest fear in doing that was having a panic attack quite frankly. I was just so ready to do it … and excited to do it.”
In another moment, Transparent creator Jill Soloway, a bisexual whose father is transgender, says:
When people come out, they are literally coming out to save their lives. They’re coming out to make a break for freedom for authenticity. It really is an example for all of us.”
And Caitlyn Jenner, who DeGeneres had confronted about her lukewarm endorsement of same-sex marriage, is seen in the video saying:
There’s nothing better than waking up in the morning and be able to be your authentic self.”
But the last words belong to President Barack Obama who tells DeGeneres:
As much as we’ve done with laws and ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell etc, changing hearts and minds? I don’t think there’s anybody who’s been more influential than you have been.”
