Ellen DeGeneres’ Move to U.K. ‘Only Increases the Incredible Control’ She Wields Over Wife Portia

Ellen DeGeneres was calling all the shots while engineering her and Portia de Rossi’s sudden move to the U.K., per a rock solid insider, who exclusively tells In Touch she is playing a dangerous game trying to control her wife’s every move. 

“Ellen’s decision to move to England is baffling if you just look at it as a reaction to the election or the shifting culture in the U.S., but it makes perfect sense when you look at the arc of her relationship with Portia,” says a source who has known the ex-talk show queen for years. 

The two met while both working on the set of Ally McBeal in 2000 before reconnecting four years later and kicking off their romance. They tied the knot in August 2008, beginning what a different insider told In Touch was considered “the strangest marriage in Hollywood.”

The oddity of their union stems from “all the wacky schemes Ellen has dragged them into as a couple,” that source said. But like a lot of things in the comedian’s life, “a lot of Ellen’s side hustles evaporated after her scandal.”

While times were good and Ellen, 66, was undoubtedly the queen of talk television, her “schemes” seemed manageable, at least from their Montecito, California mansion. But as her career tumbled following a bombshell report alleging abuse behind the scenes of her show, her increasingly erratic behavior trying to recapture her past fame “only intensified the talk among Ellen and Portia’s remaining pals in Hollywood that their marriage is in terrible shape.” 

With Ellen now on the war path out of the U.S., the first source says that “getting out of Southern California only increases the incredible control Ellen has had over Portia for years, and Ellen clearly had a reason to want to increase that level of control.” 

The move just doesn’t make sense to the friend. “What’s utterly bizarre about all this is that they’re both willing to sell their Montecito estate, which they’ve both put thousands of hours into and which was the major collaborative creative project of their marriage.” 

“There has to be a real darkness at work in the relationship for them to give up on that home and move somewhere else, especially at a time when Portia is still very viable as an actress,” the insider adds. “She hasn’t worked in a while, but people still like her and respect her and even after Ellen’s scandal, Portia could snap her fingers and have her choice of roles.” 

“But Ellen has managed to convince her that her time is better spent with Ellen, in a mansion in the British countryside. Even during Ellen’s talk show heyday there was this sense that she was constantly stage managing Portia like her own personal puppet, and that’s only increased in the years since Ellen left her show.” 

“I don’t see this new arrangement working out in the long term and it looks a lot more like a last resort than a fresh start.”