Reply #7: To my knowledge, she has never talked about her tragedies. [View All]

This is the first time I've heard about her "dark time of the soul." Many other people have their own tales (I think I'm in just such a time now) but she has never put it on display that I've ever seen.

When she came out during her TV show, I strongly suspected she did so because her sitcom was terrible and she was trying to raise some controversy. It didn't occur to me that she did it as a matter of truth-telling. (The latter episodes, after her character "came out," didn't help change my mind about that; they were lousy.)

It was only when she got her talk show and had to be herself, not a scripted character, that I began to appreciate her. And I think that I disliked her earlier stuff because it was dominated by non-sequitur jokes. People who tell a lot of non-sequitur jokes are trying to hide something. (Like, for example, Paula Poundstone.) On Ms. Degeneris's talk show she doesn't have to hide anything any more, and her jokes are more reality-based. It works beautifully because now, SHE works beautifully.