Celebrity host & actor, Ellen DeGeneres, has cheered for Dutee Chand’s coming out as India’s first gay sportsperson. The Indian sprinter recently revealed that she had found her soulmate and therefore became the first sportsperson to admit to a same-sex relationship.
Tweeting about how ‘proud’ she was of Chand, Ellen even mentioned that she knew a thing or two about being ‘the first’. When Ellen came out as a lesbian in 1997, she was at the height of her fame. Her ‘coming out’ episode on her sitcom ‘Ellen’ was the highest-rated episode of the show, something DeGeneres went on to further discuss on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show.
In spite of the high ratings, the studio behind the sitcom chose to cancel the show only a season after DeGeneres came out. Isolated in Hollywood for a certain period, DeGeneres found her own talk show in 2003. 16 years later, The Ellen DeGeneres Show is still the most popular talk show on TV.
DeGeneres married actor Portia De Rossi in 2008, and has been in a happy marriage for nearly 11 years. Former US President Barrack Obama even awarded DeGeneres with a presidential medal before his term ended, and the tears in her eyes caught everyone’s attention.
Chand has revealed that she was being blackmailed by her elder sister in Odisha, and that’s why she had to come clean about her sexuality in front of the world. Currently the fastest woman in India, we hope this is only the beginning of many (and happy!) firsts in her career.
