Wanda Sykes grateful to Ellen for paving way

It was in April 1997 that 42 million viewers watched Ellen DeGeneres’ character come out as a lesbian in the ABC sitcom Ellen.

At the same time, DeGeneres was coming out in real life on the cover of Time Magazine with the headline ‘Yep, I’m gay.’

Wanda Sykes had just joined the writing staff of The Chris Rock Show that year was watching the backlash against DeGeneres from afar.

She was glad it wasn’t her.

‘After I saw what Ellen went through, that made everyone (pause) and go, “Put an extra lock on this (closet) door,”‘ she says in a new It Got Better video.

‘I remember conversations about “Yep, I’m Gay” and what’s she celeb rating that for? Why is she on the cover of a magazine? It was awful.’

Although DeGeneres’ sitcom was canceled soon after and she had a few lean years professionally, she has since become a beloved daytime talk show host whose wedding to actress Portia de Rossi was featured on the cover on People Magazine.

‘She want through that and look at her now,’ says Sykes who came out publicly in 2008 at a rally to defeat California’s Proposition 8 which, for a time, banned same-sex marriage in that state.

‘What she did definitely helped me to come out,’ she says of DeGeneres. ‘Not just coming out but just coming to grips with it myself like, “Wow, I’m a lesbian.” That was incredibly hard.’

In the video, Sykes says it was other people who filled in the holes when her coming out caused her to be shunned by her family for years.

‘It’s having good people around you who fill in… you’ll have another family and they will help you get through it.’