U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the State Department had declined former TV host Ellen DeGeneres’ application to reinstate her U.S. citizenship.
A rumor that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the State Department had declined former TV host Ellen DeGeneres’ application to reinstate her U.S. citizenship spread in June 2026.
For example, a Facebook page claimed on June 24 (archived) that Rubio said he denied DeGeneres’ application “because Ellen doesn’t have a valid reason to immigrate to the U.S.”
Some users on Facebook (archived, archived) seemed to interpret the rumor about Rubio rejecting DeGeneres’ application to reinstate her U.S. citizenship as true. Snopes readers searched our site to investigate its legitimacy.
To investigate, we first used search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo (archived, archived, archived). We did not find any credible reporting that the State Department had denied DeGeneres’ application to reinstate her citizenship or that Rubio had spoken about it.
We identified the rumor’s original source: the Facebook page America Loves Liberty.
That page first shared the rumor on June 24 (archived). The page describes itself as “An authorized dumping ground for certified AI-free trollery and right-wing propaganda courtesy of America’s Last Line of Defense. Nothing on this page is real.”
The post by America Loves Liberty included a digitally added label: a small watermark in the lower left corner of the image reading, “Nothing on this page is real.” That marking was visible in every post we reviewed.
The America Loves Liberty page previously shared another satirical story (archived) that claimed Rubio denied DeGeneres’ “application to repatriate to the United States.” That story also spread on Instagram (archived) and carried the “Nothing on this page is real” watermark.
Snopes routinely checks satire items from America’s Last Line of Defense.
DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, moved from the U.S. to the U.K. after the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump in November 2024. There was no evidence DeGeneres gave up her U.S. citizenship when she moved.
The couple reportedly live in the Cotswolds region in southeast England.
We contacted a representative for DeGeneres to ask if she had given up or applied to reinstate her U.S. citizenship and await a reply.
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