Why Walmart Loves Ellen

The talk show host has an unlikely partner in the retail giant.

- Ben Steverman and Matthew Boyle, with Tom Metcalf

Ellen DeGeneres is on television every weekday. Sometimes she’s on twice. Her daytime talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, brings in more advertising revenue than Dr. Phil’s and Kelly Ripa’s combined, and her prime-time special, Ellen’s Game of Games, gets consistently good ratings. DeGeneres produces movies, voices a popular Pixar character, has her own digital content network, and has earned at least $500 million on endorsement and TV deals, according to a Bloomberg Billionaires Index analysis. She has her own lifestyle brand and last year formed a partnership with Walmart Inc. to create a clothing and accessories line that’s awash in American flags and rainbows and is sold in 2,300 Walmart stores. “I’m still gay, by the way. It’s really working out for me now,” DeGeneres said in her Netflix stand-up special last year.

That the largest U.S. retailer finds value in aligning itself with a 61-year-old lesbian who has a recurring segment on her talk show called “Oh, Straight People,” is, in many ways, a testament to how thoroughly Americans have accepted LGBTQ rights. It’s been 50 years since the Stonewall uprising in New York marked the start of the modern gay rights movement. Almost two-thirds of Americans support same-sex marriage, Gallup polls show, the opposite of what they reported when DeGeneres first came out two decades ago. The chief executive of America’s first trillion-dollar company, Apple Inc., is gay, and yet iPhones still fly off the shelves. Walt Disney Co. this year had its first gay characters on both its youth cable channel and in its latest Avengers film. According to GLAAD, 8.8% of prime-time TV characters are gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. Walmart even has a Pride shop online.