After a 19-season run, longtime daytime television personality Ellen DeGeneres is saying goodbye to her daily talk show. Debuting its first episode in 2003, The Ellen Show has been on the air for almost two full decades, seeing some ups and downs along that way. In a Twitter thread on Friday, DeGeneres posted an emotional announcement thanking the fans for their support as filming on the series finale comes to a close. You can read DeGeneres’ statement below.

Over the years, The Ellen Show has garnered numerous awards, winning 61 of its 171 Daytime Emmy Award nominations as well as 17 People’s Choice Awards. The series, like other talk shows, would consist of DeGeneres speaking with various celebrity guests. For years, DeGeneres was known for often dancing with these guests, making it a point for many stars who’d appear on the series to dance with Ellen.

“Today we taped the final episode of The Ellen Show which airs on May 26th. When we started this show in 2003, the iPhone didn’t exist. Social Media didn’t exist. Gay marriage wasn’t legal. We watched the world change, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. But whatever was happening, my goal was always for the show to be a place where we could all come together and laugh for an hour. Being invited into your lives has been the greatest privilege of my life and has brought me incredible joy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

Ellen DeGeneres Ends Her Series After Controversy

     NBC

In recent years, The Ellen Show had been experiencing some turmoil behind the scenes. Ratings were going down, and, to make matters worse, the show was hit with allegations of a “toxic workplace environment” in 2020. An internal investigation resulted in the removal of multiple producers, and while DeGeneres had hoped this would lessen the controversy, ratings only continued to decrease after the show returned.

Last year, it was announced that The Ellen Show would be ending after 19 seasons, but DeGeneres said the decision to wrap up the talk show had nothing to do with the controversy. DeGeneres said at the time that this had been “the plan all along,” and the timing was nothing more than a coincidence. She said in a statement at the time:

It’s the end of an era in daytime television in many ways. It was recently announced that Maury Povich is also retiring this year, bringing an end to Maury after three decades. Late night television is getting a shakeup soon as well, as James Corden will be leaving The Late Late Show in 2023, as was just announced this week.

“I was going to stop after season 16. That was going to be my last season and they wanted to sign for four more years and I said I’d sign for maybe for one. They were saying there was no way to sign for one. ‘We can’t do that with the affiliates and the stations need more of a commitment.’ So, we [settled] on three more years and I knew that would be my last. That’s been the plan all along. And everybody kept saying, even when I signed, ‘You know, that’s going to be 19, don’t you want to just go to 20? It’s a good number.’ So is 19.”