The Night Ellen Came Out (1997)
Forty-two million people. Two words. One microphone she didn't mean to lean on.
Tonight: The Puppy Episode. The night in April 1997 when Ellen DeGeneres and her sitcom character came out together on ABC, and a country gathered in living rooms and bars and one rented theater in Alabama to hear it.
Along the way: an oyster counter in New Orleans, a phone call to God, Johnny Carson waving her to the couch, a network that wanted her to get a puppy instead, Oprah and Laura Dern saying yes, a Time cover that said it in three words, the sponsors who left and the ones who stayed, a Birmingham station…
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