Ellen Degeneres has described her experiences of having Covid-19, after returning to work on her US talk show.
The presenter and comedian tested positive for coronavirus in December, meaning production on her talk show had to be put on hold, and she was unable to record her last few shows of 2020.
Thankfully for her fans, Ellen was back in the studio this week, assuring her viewers she is “all good now”.
“There’s a lot of negativity going on so I thought we’d talk about something positive, my Covid test,” she joked at the beginning of the show.
Thanking those who “reached out with kind words of support”, Ellen said (via MailOnline): “I wish I could have hugged all of you, but that would have been dangerous and illegal.”
“Thank you to the audience who have come back, you were supposed to be In the audience in December but we had to cancel,” she continued.
“I was getting ready for the show that you were supposed to be in, my extensions put in and my face powdered.
“And my assistant Craig came in and said you’ve tested positive for coronavirus. Then everyone around me ran away. People really just get scared and ran, some have not been back since. I left immediately and everyone was informed.”
Ellen noted that she “slept for 16 hours a day” for the first three days of her self-quarantine, after which her only Covid-19 symptom was an unusual back pain.
“The fourth day I woke up with back spasms so thought I’d pulled a muscle or slept funny,” she explained.
“But it persisted so the doctor put me on painkillers and muscle relaxers… the painkillers didn’t help, it felt like I had cracked a rib.
“So they put me on a steroid pack, but they make you really speedy and edgy.”
She added that she’s still taking medication to relieve her back pain, stating: “I spoke to my brother and told him about the back pain, he had a friend with the same, and then I spoke to several other people. So apparently back pain is a symptom of Covid… it’s the only symptom I had.
“I started to feel better so I’m very fortunate and feeling okay now. I don’t know how I got it, I wear a mask and wash my hands, and only licked three door handles.
“To the people struggling with the illness right now my heart goes out to them.”
Ellen isn’t the only star to speak out about her experiences of the virus, with Sharon Osbourne saying last week that she’s still feeling the effects, having been briefly hospitalised in December.
Noting she still “can’t smell very much or taste very much”, Sharon insisted last week that she “came out very lucky”.
Meanwhile, after testing positive over Christmas, comedian John Bishop said coronavirus is the “worst illness I’ve ever had”.