YouTube
"Seeing your staff actually triggered me for what it feels like when you have all of these people who've become your family"
Oprah Winfrey is helping Ellen DeGeneres say goodbye to her namesake show.
During an appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," the 68-year-old former talk show host started tearing up as she helped her longtime friend and fellow TV personality wrap up her 19-year run on daytime television.
"I got a little emotional backstage because I saw your entire staff is back there," Winfrey told DeGeneres, "I said to everybody, 'I know what this feels like with only a couple of days left!' and just was really applauding your team for making this show what it's been for 19 years."
"Obviously you're the face out front, but it's everybody back there that actually makes it work, I was really tearing up saying 'Guys what a great job you've done,'" Winfrey's own show ran from 1986-2011. "I guess I'm tearing up because seeing your staff actually triggered me for what it feels like when you have all of these people who've become your family, this has been your home."
DeGeneres agreed with her sentiments, "We talk about this all the time, there's a very small group of people who understand what this job is, and an even smaller group of women to go this long… but there's magic that happens when you have the right group of people around you."
"I've been feeling good… I've been talking to Jay Shetty a lot, and he's been helping me and he's just saying, just celebrate and there's emotion and you can have emotion but take pride in what you created and what happened over 19 years," she said.
The friends also talked about their long history, and laughed about Ellen's ploy to become O Magazine's next cover girl back in 2009. The talk show host joined Winfrey on the cover for the December issue of that year which became one of the magazine's highest selling issues.
"I decided to make it a campaign that I would be on that magazine cover and I went after it and I didn’t stop. I continued to do it until you finally gave in and we had so much fun," DeGeneres quipped.
"At first I thought you were joking, I didn't think you actually really wanted to do it and then you actually said yes too! That was one of the biggest selling covers ever in the history of O Magazine!" Oprah laughed.
