Ellen DeGeneres Jokes About ‘Selling’ Wife Portia de Rossi’s Appendix After Emergency Surgery
Ellen DeGeneres has been able to find humor in wife Portia de Rossi’s scary trip to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy.
Now that Ellen DeGeneres‘ wife Portia de Rossi is at home and doing well after being hospitalized for emergency appendicitis surgery, the 63-year-old comedian is able to joke about the frightening medical experience. Ellen opened her Mar. 23 show by asking her audience if they had a good weekend, then asked, “Anybody else have to rush their wife to the emergency room for an appendectomy? Anybody? Just me? Okay,” while raising her hand.
“So here’s what happened. It started on Friday, in the evening around 7:30. So I’m sitting there watching TV with Portia, and Portia said ‘I’m not feeling well. I want to go to bed’ and it was like eight o’clock,” which Ellen noted was way to early for her to fall asleep. She said she took a couple of sleep vitamins as to be with Portia, which took effect fast. “I’m laying in bed and I’m like conking out and I’m so ready to sleep. I hear something and I look over and Portia’s not in bed next to me. I called out ‘are you okay’ and I heard “uhhhhh,'” as Ellen made a painful moaning sound.
“So then I get out of bed and find Portia on the floor on all fours and I’m like ‘baby are you okay?’ and she’s like ‘yeah, I’m okay,’ and I said ‘well you’re okay if you’re playing Twister by yourself,” Ellen recalled as the audience laughed. Ellen then explained, “I rushed her to the E.R. and she’s in so much pain and I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
Ellen said that at the hospital Portia underwent a CT scan, but that doctors still weren’t sure what was wrong due to inflammation. At that point they wanted to admit Portia to the hospital, and sadly Ellen wasn’t allowed to stay because of COVID rules, which was “upsetting” to the host because she wanted to comfort her wife. “They sent me home and I’m crying…cause someone was chopping onions at the nurse’s station,” Ellen mused with another joke.
“The next morning they called and said ‘it’s the appendix. We have to take the appendix out,'” Ellen continued. Later that day Portia was out of surgery but still “in a lot of pain” as she and Ellen texted back and forth. The host then said Portia, 48, tried to bargain for the nurses to up her pain medication, joking that the actress told them, “In exchange for pain meds I’ll give you tickets to Ellen’s show.” Ellen then said Portia upped the offer to tickets to her “12 days” of giveaways Christmas SWAG-filled shows, but still came up empty in the pain meds increase request to her nurses.
“I am happy to report that Portia is feeling much better now,” Ellen assured her audience. “She came home late yesterday. Not all of her, she left her appendix at the hospital. I’m going to auction off the appendix for charity…I’m kidding. It’s going to go on E-Bay. I’m kidding again!” Ellen joked. The couple has been married for 12 years, and Portia was there for Ellen in Dec. 2020 when the TV icon tested positive for COVID-19.