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Ellen, Oprah and Laura Dern remember 'coming-out' episode 20 years later

Kelly Lawler
USA TODAY

Yup, Ellen is still gay.

Twenty years ago, Ellen DeGeneres came out on the cover of Time magazine, and then her character on her sitcom Ellen came out just afterward. It was a milestone in our culture, paving the way for more LGBT representation in television and film and helping shape the conversation. The talk show host dedicated an emotional episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show Friday to this anniversary, reuniting with the cast of the sitcom and guest-stars Oprah Winfrey, who played the character's therapist, and Laura Dern, who played her love interest, to talk about the episode and the aftermath.

“It was the hardest thing that I ever had to do in my life and I would not change one moment of it because it led me to be exactly where I am today — standing in front of all of you, which is a joy," DeGeneres said when she opened the show with a clip reel of the controversy surrounding "The Puppy Episode," as the coming out episode was called. "And the fact that all of you and everyone at home is watching me and willing to accept me into your homes every day when no one thought that would ever happen again, it means the world to me.”

The immediate aftermath of the episode was a little less joyful. When Winfrey joined DeGeneres later in the show, the pair discussed the aftermath of appearing on the episode, which was filled with hate mail and vitriol.

Winfrey explained that she had “immediately said yes” to the guest role, but she had not expected so much hate in response. “I misread that everybody was like us, that they were open-minded and that they were receptive and that they wanted people to just be who they are,” she said.

How bad was the response? “It was so bad. The next day after the show, I flew back to Chicago and the next day … we had to put another person on the switchboard. I remember something like 900-and-something calls; they couldn’t keep up.”

The reunion was completed with Big Little Lies star Laura Dern, who played Ellen's love interest Susan in the episode and didn't work in Hollywood for a year afterward as a result, in part because many people thought she was gay.

But her memories of filming the episode are powerful and profound. “I have to say, just watching the clip, it made me so emotional because of all the things I feel privileged to experience in my life as a human but also as an actor, there’s no greater gift than being the person that was with you and looking in your eyes as you said those words (‘I am gay’),” she told DeGeneres.

“And watching you have this catharsis or ritual and the audience support and a sort of holding — literal holding, I remember we were kind of holding each other up through this very emotional moment. It was so profound and I feel so blessed that I got to be there and witness that,” she added.

After reuniting with her sitcom co-stars Joely Fisher, Clea Lewis , and David Anthony Higgins, DeGeneres closed out the episode with a message of hope.

“Obviously, we have come a long way in the past 20 years," she said, addressing the audience. "Even when this show started, the network was very uncomfortable with me even talking about my sexuality or my relationship,” she said. “Now, we’re here and I’ve done a whole show about the fact that I’m gay, so we have come a long way. But we still have a long way to go to make sure everybody has the right to be who they are. And one way we can start, and I say it every single day, is to be kind to one another.”

Read more on Ellen's anniversary:
20-year flashback: Ellen DeGeneres came outand paved the way for more gay TV roles
TV's gay characters, before and after Ellen