While addressing the One Million Mom controversy Wednesday, Ellen DeGeneres took time out to thank a somewhat unlikely defender of her role as spokesperson for JCPenney: Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. On Monday, O’Reilly slammed One Million Moms for their call to remove DeGeneres as spokesperson, deeming their actions not in “the spirit of America.” DeGeneres took exception to O’Reilly’s defense.

After a heated segment on the calls by conservative groups to have Ellen Degeneres removed from a JC Penney ad campaign, Bill O’Reilly invited regular Bernie Goldberg on to talk about the fight between Planned Parenthood and the Susan G. Komen Foundation, to showcase “the other side of intolerance.” But Goldberg had a few words to say about Degeneres, too– namely, that “there is a strain of bigotry running through conservative America” that he was just “sick of.”

Bill O’Reilly had a particularly pro-Hollywood night tonight, as far as The Factor is typically concerned. After a segment in which he defended Clint Eastwood from claims that his Super Bowl ad was subliminal Obama campaign propaganda, O’Reilly had on Sandy Rios of Family-Pac Federal to explain the call from conservative group Million Moms to get Ellen Degeneres fired as JC Penney spokeswoman, and he was not happy with their argument. “I don’t think that’s the spirit of America,” he objected to Rios, who argued that Degeneres represented immorality.

As we all know from listening to cable TV and talk radio, First Lady Michelle Obama is running an evil Socialist program designed to control the the very sustenance we need to survive by brainwashing our children into “y’know, eating a few more veggies.” Well, today she went on Ellen to further propagandize her sinister program by doing push ups.

Push ups like they do in Communist Russia!

There are a few things you probably don’t know about the actress Kristen Bell. First off, she just turned 31 years old (seriously, I thought she was like twenty…nothing). Secondly, she loves sloths. Like really loves them. Like really, really loves them. So much that when her boyfriend, Parenthood‘s Dax Shepard, arranged to have one brought over for her birthday, she had a full on panic attack. And he taped it. And then she showed it on Ellen.

It’s amazing.

Ok, kids, we’re going to need your help with this one. In this segment from Ellen DeGeneres‘ talk show, a nice young man surprises his girlfriend by proposing to her on the program.

Paris Jackson, the daughter of late pop star Michael Jackson, paid a visit to The Ellen DeGeneres Show, in part to promote her upcoming film work.

It’s incredibly, incredibly rare, but sometimes we get to see something on TV that’s just plain…nice. No hosts yelling at each other. No politicians spinning lies. No commercials for gold. Just something happy.

Add to that rarefied category this video from today’s Ellen. On the show, Degeneres was joined by a couple of little British girls who had become a viral sensation after filming themselves performing singer Nicki Minaj’s song “Super Bass.” After letting them perform it live, the host surprised the girls with a special guest; Minaj herself.

Meredith Vieira may be anxious to sleep in and relax when she leaves NBC’s TODAY later this year, but she didn’t get any peace in a visit with Ellen Degeneres on Ellen Monday. Degeneres aired hidden camera video of Vieira’s arrival at the studio for the interview–including the comic hiding in a dressing room and lunging at the unsuspecting morning show host. “I love scaring people,” said Degeneres, who joked about Vieira’s reaction to the prank–which had to be bleeped out. “You have a filthy mouth.”

Earlier this week, I hosted an online panel examining gender stereotypes surrounding sex and the double-standard in relationships and the workplace, hooked on the release of the film Love & Other Drugs, in which Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal play a couple who initially meet because they are both fans of casual sex. That begins [...]

President Obama has joined the growing ranks of public personalities who have taped a personal message of “it gets better” in support of gay teens. The It Gets Better Project is a campaign started by Dan Savage, a Seattle-based columnist as a response to a string of recent teen suicides reportedly as a result of getting bullied for being gay. Thus far numerous entertainment and political luminaries have recorded messages including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Ellen Degeneres among hundreds of others.

If you haven’t watched Ft. Worth councilman Joel Burns‘ emotional speech about being a gay teen that he gave during a council meeting the other night I highly recommend you do. And get some tissues. The vid has been making the rounds on the web, and is the latest (unofficial) addition in a series of videos that gay adults have making to encourage gay teens to hang on “it will get better.”

Perez Hilton appeared on Ellen today and announced to host Ellen DeGeneres that he’s dramatically changing the tone of his popular celebrity gossip site, PerezHilton.com to no longer be mean or be a bully. This appears to be in reaction to a spate of tragic stories in the news of late in which victims of gay bullying ended their lives.

This morning, Tom Junod over at Esquire‘s political blog offered his take on why Republican voters have been more energized than Democratic ones: sex appeal. In an article titled “How D.C. Became Hollywood for Semi-Attractive People,” he argues that conservative women like Christine O’Donnell, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and Michele Bachmann are both “crazy” and the new “standard of beauty,” while lib ladies are “either old or unattractive.” As he puts it, “the Democrats became the CNN to the Republican Fox, clueless in their competence, bewildered by their own best intentions.”

Universal Studios is taking heat from both Hollywood insiders, bloggers, and even Anderson Cooper over the new Ron Howard movie The Dilemma. And, no, it’s not about the fact that they want us to believe Vince Vaughn and Kevin James could pull Jennifer Connelly and Winona Ryder, but rather the trailer which opens with a gay joke. Now Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Universal will alter the offending preview.

The suicide of Tyler Clementi has received a large amount of press coverage in the past few days but, unfortunately, it’s actually only one of a handful of tragic deaths related to teenage bullying and harassment that
have occurred in the past few weeks. A number of public figures have been trying to help like advice columnist Dan Savage who created the It Gets Better Project, in which people can upload videos to YouTube offering hope to LGBT despairing teenagers. Meanwhile, Ellen DeGeneres recorded a similar message. Voice breaking, she promised with bullied teens that situations will improve and that they all “should be alive to see it.”

Well finally we know the answer that’s on everyone’s mind: who will replace Simon Cowell, Ellen DeGeneres and Kara DioGuardi as judges on American Idol? Rumors that Jennifer Lopez had already inked a deal to join the only returning judge Randy Jackson appear to be true. The two of them will be joined by Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler.

Rumors have been swirling for weeks as to who will be announced as the celebrity judge(s) for next season’s American Idol. Most insiders feel that Ellen Degeneres is definitely out next season, and now Gossip Cop is reporting that offers have been made to Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler.

Forbes released its annual list of the 100 most powerful celebrities today, and look! Some of your favorite media moguls, TV hosts, and radio personalities made the cut. Here at Mediaite, we rank these folks against each other on the regular with our trusty Power Grid. Granted, the numbers on the two lists differ with Forbes’ inclusion of other types of celebrities (like Britney Spears, coming in at #6 – nice comeback, girl!) but let’s take a look at how they compare, shall we?

In celebration of Gay Pride Month and in honor of this important anniversary, Mediaite contributor Robert Newman arranged a series of magazine covers – each “featuring an artist, personality, historical event, or publication of significance in gay history” – and released one per day throughout the month of June on his Newmanology facebook page. Here are some of the highlights from the collection:

In the middle of broadcasting the daily news brief, a local Chicago news team was pleasantly interrupted by Ellen DeGeneres, who showed up unexpectedly to take command of the newscast, cheer up the place and hand out all sorts of freebies. Ellen doesn’t seem to realize she interrupted a live newscast, though, until it’s too late. And then she reports the weather!

For a show hosted by one of the most liberal hosts on TV, last night’s Real Time with Bill Maher was pretty racially charged. Discussing the new Arizona immigration law and relating it somehow with an incident on Family Feud where a contestant claimed Ellen Degeneres hated America, Bill Maher concluded that “the problem in this country is older white people.” He didn’t meet much opposition from his panel.

Family Feud and other game shows often provide great fodder for bloopers and other viral video moments.

Well one contestant’s offensive answer about Ellen DeGeneres recently drew the attention of the talk show host – and she replayed the tape “Mystery Science Theater 3000″-style on her show.

When Oprah Winfrey announced she was ending her talk show in 2011, the question immediately arose: who’s the next Oprah? Names such as Glenn Beck, David Letterman, and Conan O’Brien were (mostly jokingly) bandied about, but according to the New York Times, the most serious contender already has a daytime show of her own – Ellen DeGeneres.

When the decade began, the gay community was recovering from its unrequited love affair with the Clinton administration and worried about the culture war being waged by religious conservatives. By the end of the decade, the same people were dealing with their unrequited love affair with the Obama administration and, well, you know where this is going. Still, the decade was not without its highlights – we’ve still come a long, long way since 2000. So, on to the gayest moments of the Aughts!