Ellen DeGeneres returning to television for passion project
CNN/Stylemagazine.com Newswire | 9/15/2023, 3:03 p.m.
Ellen DeGeneres speaks onstage during the Michelle Obama: The Light We Carry Tour at Warner Theatre on November 15, 2022 in Washington, DC. The former talk-show host has teamed up with Discovery Channel for “Saving the Gorillas: Ellen’s Next Adventure.”
Mandatory Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Live Nation
Originally Published: 14 SEP 23 09:49 ET
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
(CNN) — Ellen DeGeneres is coming back to television.
The former talk-show host has teamed up with Discovery Channel for “Saving the Gorillas: Ellen’s Next Adventure,” which, according to a press release, leans into her “passion and commitment to animals, and admiration for world-renowned primatologist, Dian Fossey.”
“What begins as Portia de Rossi’s simple desire to come up with a nice birthday gift for her wife, Ellen DeGeneres, snowballs into something bigger than anybody could have imagined,” the announcement states. “The couple find themselves embarking on one of the largest architectural and landscaping projects in the history of Rwanda, only to collide with challenges like volcanoes, earthquakes, and a global pandemic.”
DeGeneres had had a dream of protecting Fossey’s legacy by building the The Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda.
“Every single thing has led me to just have a big enough platform to say, ‘Look at work Dian Fossey did,’” DeGeneres says in the documentary. “There’s nothing that keeps you more present, more in the moment, than sitting with gorillas.”
“Saving the Gorillas: Ellen’s Next Adventure” is set to premiere on Saturday, Sept. 23 in honor of World Gorilla Day. (Discovery Channel, Animal Plant, Max and Discovery+ are owned by CNN’s parent company.)
