Ellen DeGeneres to Shutdown Her Show

It has been a ratings hit for nearly two decades, but it’s about to end.

Ellen DeGeneres says that her 19th season for her show “Ellen” will be her last.

“When you’re a creative person, you constantly need to be challenged — and as great as this show is, and as fun as it is, it’s just not a challenge anymore,” DeGeneres tells The Hollywood Reporter, discussing the move publicly for the first time.

“Although all good things must come to an end, you still have hope that truly great things never will,” says Warner Bros.’ unscripted TV president Mike Darnell, who as recently as late April was still prodding DeGeneres to reconsider. He calls her eponymous series “an absolute phenomenon,” having established itself over nearly two decades on air “as the premier destination for both superstars and incredible heartfelt human-interest stories.”

There are things that DeGeneres will not miss about doing the show. “I will not miss hair and makeup every day. I’m not someone who loves to sit in a chair and have that done. And I will not miss fittings — if you gain one pound, the pants don’t fit you the way that they did two weeks ago, so that doesn’t feel good to have fittings. Those are the things I won’t miss. I’ll miss everything else. Listen, this is my family. They’ve become my best friends. I come to work and I laugh every single day. We create stuff that’s sometimes just funny to us and it’s not exactly mass appeal, but I don’t care ’cause it’s stuff that’s dry and quiet and it’s my humor and, you know, I’ve tried to stay true to who I am and what my brand is. This all became bigger than I ever could have dreamed of. I’m not the pretty girl who made it in Hollywood because of the way I looked. I worked from nothing to doing stand-up to having this career, and I’m so proud of this show. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. And so I’ll miss everything but, in my gut, I know it’s time to do something different,” she said.