Ellen DeGeneres
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Ellen DeGeneres trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Ellen DeGeneres has had one of the most eventful careers in American comedy. She went from small clubs to a network sitcom, made television history when she and her character came out in 1997, and then spent nearly two decades as one of the best-known faces of daytime TV. This quiz covers the whole story: the stand-up years, the sitcom and its landmark episode, the talk show with its dancing, pranks, giveaways and famous guests, and the spin-off game show built from its studio games. There are questions on her film and voice work, the awards ceremonies she hosted, the honors she collected, and the controversies that came before the final episode in 2022. It is written for fans who watched every afternoon, for casual viewers who mostly know her voice from a certain animated fish, and for quiz hosts who need a ready-made pop culture round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the story behind each fact as you play.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor actually took the star-packed selfie that Ellen DeGeneres tweeted while hosting the 2014 Oscars?
Bradley Cooper
Bradley Cooper pressed the shutter, which later raised a copyright puzzle: Ellen licensed the picture to the Associated Press although she had not taken it.
Q 02What food did Ellen DeGeneres have delivered to the celebrity audience while she was hosting the 2014 Oscars?
Pizza
Pizza came from a Southern California chain, and Ellen passed Pharrell's trademark hat around the movie stars to collect a tip for the surprised deliveryman.
Q 03Which regal blue tang does Ellen DeGeneres voice in Pixar's Finding Nemo and in its 2016 sequel?
Dory
Dory earned Ellen DeGeneres a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, a prize for an acting performance that is heard but never seen.
Q 04Which Arrested Development actress did Ellen DeGeneres marry at their Beverly Hills home in August 2008?
Portia de Rossi
Portia de Rossi married Ellen after California's ban on same-sex marriage was overturned, and a later court ruling kept the wedding valid despite Proposition 8.
Q 05Which talk show host played the therapist to whom Ellen's sitcom character came out in The Puppy Episode?
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey played the therapist in what became one of the highest-rated episodes of Ellen, broadcast shortly after DeGeneres herself came out in real life.
Q 06Whom did Ellen DeGeneres replace on the American Idol judging panel for the show's ninth season in 2010?
Paula Abdul
Paula Abdul had left over unresolved contract talks, and Ellen lasted only one season herself before deciding that judging singers was not the right job for her.
Q 07Which actress was the first guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2003 and also appeared on its final episode?
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston opened the show's run and helped close it in May 2022, and in between she took a turn as its guest host in January 2020.
Q 08Ellen DeGeneres's 2014 Oscars selfie broke the retweet record set by which politician's election victory post?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama had held the record with a post marking his 2012 re-election, and the selfie overtook it within forty minutes of being sent.
Q 09Which magazine put Ellen DeGeneres on its cover in April 1997 when she publicly came out as a lesbian?
Time
Time ran the cover in April 1997, and in 2020 the magazine chose her again as its woman of the year for 1997 in a set of retrospective covers.
Q 10Which charades-style phone app, born from a game on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, topped the App Store in 2013?
Heads Up
Heads Up began as a game played with cards held to the forehead on the talk show, and the app passed 650,000 downloads in its first month.
Q 11Ellen DeGeneres won national attention in 1986 with a stand-up set on The Tonight Show, then hosted by whom?
Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson fronted a programme known for launching comedians' careers by putting them before a national audience, and it did the same for her.
Q 12In which city near her birthplace of Metairie was Ellen DeGeneres the emcee at Clyde's Comedy Club by 1981?
New Orleans
New Orleans is also where she studied communications at university for a single semester before leaving to do clerical work at a law firm.
Q 13In its early seasons the ABC sitcom Ellen was often described as a female version of which observational comedy?
Seinfeld
Q 21Stephen tWitch Boss, longtime DJ on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, first found fame on which TV contest?
So You Think You Can Dance
So You Think You Can Dance placed him second in 2008, and he first joined Ellen in April 2014 as a guest DJ before the job became permanent.
Q 22To which rural region of England did Ellen DeGeneres and her wife relocate from California in November 2024?
The Cotswolds
The Cotswolds home was bought before the 2024 presidential election, although the move itself was reported to have been prompted by the result.
Q 23Which cosmetics brand made Ellen DeGeneres its advertising face in 2009, her first beauty campaign?
CoverGirl
Seinfeld was the comparison because the sitcom leaned on DeGeneres's own observational humor, the stand-up style that had inspired the series in the first place.
Q 14Hosting the 2001 Emmys, Ellen DeGeneres wore a copy of the swan dress made famous by which singer?
Björk
Björk had worn the original at that year's Oscars, and Ellen's copy appeared at an Emmys ceremony that had been called off twice after the September 11 attacks.
Q 15Which national honor did Ellen DeGeneres receive from the president of the United States in 2016?
Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the joint-highest civilian award in the United States, and Ellen received hers four years after the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Q 16Which streaming service released Relatable, Ellen DeGeneres's first stand-up special in fifteen years?
Netflix
Netflix premiered Relatable in December 2018, her first special since Here and Now in 2003, and the hour poked fun at her reputation for kindness.
Q 17Sophia Grace and Rosie became regulars on Ellen after their viral cover of which rapper's Super Bass?
Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj recorded the hit the girls covered on YouTube in 2011, when they were eight and five, and they went on to interview celebrities over tea on the show.
Q 18In Finding Nemo, the blue tang voiced by Ellen DeGeneres struggles throughout with which condition?
Short-term memory loss
Short-term memory loss also drives the 2016 sequel, in which her character sets off across the sea to find the parents she had forgotten.
Q 19Beside which former president was Ellen DeGeneres photographed at a 2019 Dallas Cowboys game?
George W. Bush
George W. Bush sat with her at a Cowboys game against the Packers, and Ellen answered the critics on her talk show by defending the friendship.
Q 20Which actress went viral in 2019 by correcting Ellen DeGeneres on air about an invitation to her birthday party?
Dakota Johnson
Dakota Johnson insisted she had invited the host to her thirtieth, and Ellen's staff confirmed it; the clip passed eight million YouTube views by 2022.
CoverGirl brought her some criticism, because its maker Procter and Gamble tested on animals while Ellen was known for speaking up for animal welfare.
Q 24Ellen DeGeneres was the second recipient of a Golden Globes television honor named after which comedian?
Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett received the first award herself in 2019, and Kate McKinnon presented Ellen with hers at the following ceremony.
Q 25In Know or Go, the quiz round on Ellen's Game of Games, what happens to a contestant who answers wrongly?
Dropped through a trapdoor
Dropped through a trapdoor, the loser slides down a chute into a foam pit hidden beneath the stage, while the last player standing goes on to the final round.
Q 26The Ellen DeGeneres Campus, opened in Rwanda in 2022, supports the conservation of which endangered animals?
Gorillas
Gorillas have been the cause of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund since Fossey created it in 1978 to pay for anti-poaching patrols, and the campus carries on her work.
Q 27Which actress played Susan in The Puppy Episode of Ellen and later said the role cost her over a year's work?
Laura Dern
Laura Dern told Ellen in a 2007 interview that she did not work for a year and a half after playing the woman who prompts the coming-out.
Q 28Which Finding Nemo director cast Ellen DeGeneres after seeing her change subject five times in one sentence?
Andrew Stanton
Andrew Stanton had first imagined the part as a male character, then changed course after catching an episode of her sitcom on television.
Q 29Under which title did the ABC sitcom Ellen run for its first season before being renamed after its star?
These Friends of Mine
These Friends of Mine was changed to avoid confusion with the newly launched NBC series Friends, and the retitled sitcom ran for four more seasons.
Q 30In the 1999 comedy EDtv, Ellen DeGeneres plays the creator of a reality show following which actor's character?
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey plays Ed in Ron Howard's satire, adapted from a 1994 Quebec film about an ordinary man whose life is televised around the clock.