Jennifer Aniston memorably joined Ellen DeGeneres for her last dance.
Aniston had Ellen’s audience in stitches after lampooning her high-profile divorce from Brad Pitt on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show” finale Thursday. The 53-year-old thespian kicked off her spot by fittingly slow-dancing with DeGeneres to Donna Summer’s “Last Dance.” Aniston then dropped the divorce bombshell after the 64-year-old comic asked how she handled the “Friends” finale in 2004.
“Well, I got a divorce and went into therapy,” quipped Aniston while laughing. “And then I did a movie called ‘The Break-Up.’ “
She was referencing her highly publicized split with Pitt in 2005, after they were married for four and a half years. Their marriage had reportedly ended on ugly terms after Pitt, 58, allegedly cheated on Aniston with Angelina Jolie, with whom he’s now embroiled in a fierce custody battle following a split.
Fortunately, it appears that Aniston’s taking the divorce in stride. “I just kind of leaned into the end,” the “Just Go With It” star told DeGeneres. “I was like, ‘You know what guys, let’s just make this a completely new chapter. Let’s just end everything, and start new.’”
Apparently the two former flames “are still friends,” per an insider source, who claimed they “talk and have a nice, friendly, cordial relationship,” ET online reported.
Meanwhile, in a 2021 episode of the “Howard Stern Show,” Aniston had claimed that “Brad and I are buddies.” She added that despite their tumultuous history, there’s “no oddness” between her and the “Benjamin Button” star.
The ex-couple had reunited backstage at the 2020 SAG Awards, and conducted a virtual table read together for “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” that same year.
Aniston’s appearance on Ellen’s finale was particularly fitting as she was the first on-set guest on the talk show when it premiered in 2003. The sitcom star has since appeared on the program 20 times during its 19 seasons.
As Aniston joked during the finale, “I’ve been on your show more than you’ve been on the air.”
Arguably the most moving portion of the show, which also featured musical guests Billie Eilish and Pink, was the tear-jerking final monologue.
DeGeneres strode out onstage to a standing ovation from the crowd, which included her wife of 14 years Portia de Rossi, USA Today reported.
We’ve pasted the tear-jerking farewell address in in its entirety below:
“Welcome to our very last show. I walked out here 19 years ago, and I said that this is the start of a relationship. And today is not the end of a relationship. It’s more of a little break. It’s a, ‘You can see other talk shows now. And I may see another audience once in a while.’
“Twenty years ago when we were trying to sell the show, no one thought that this would work. Not because it was a different kind of show, but because I was different. Very few stations wanted to buy the show, and here we are, 20 years later, celebrating this amazing journey together.
“When we started this show I couldn’t say, ‘gay’ on the show … I said it at home, a lot. ‘What are we having for our gay breakfast?’ Or, ‘Pass the gay salt.’ ‘Has anyone seen the gay remote?’ Things like that, but we couldn’t say, ‘gay.’ I couldn’t say, ‘we’ because that implied that I was with someone. Sure couldn’t say, ‘wife,’ and that’s because it wasn’t legal for gay people to get married, and now I say ‘wife’ all the time.
“Twenty-five years ago, they canceled my sitcom because they didn’t want a lesbian to be in prime time once a week. And I said, ‘OK, then I’ll be on daytime every day. How about that?’ What a beautiful, beautiful journey that we have been on together. And if this show has made you smile, if it has lifted you up, when you’re in a period of some type of pain, some type of sadness, anything that you’re going through, then I have done my job.
“Because of this platform, we have been able to change people’s lives, and this show has forever changed my life. It is the greatest experience I have ever had, beyond my wildest imagination So tWitch, one last time, dance with me.”
DeGeneres and her co-executive producer and cohort Stephen “tWitch” Boss closed out the monologue by dancing to “Best of My Love” by the Emotions.
