Ellen DeGeneres is facing a new lawsuit after a woman claimed that the former talk show host ignored a stop sign while driving in Santa Barbara County, Calif., nearly two years ago and “t-boned” her car.
According to the lawsuit, viewed by People, the woman claims that DeGeneres, 67, “entered the intersection without stopping at the stop sign.”
The lawsuit says the intersection where the incident occurred on Oct. 16, 2023 “is controlled by stop signs in all directions.”
The plaintiff claims that she stopped for her stop sign and “made sure there were no other vehicles” present before continuing to drive forward. But she claimed that DeGeneres “suddenly and without any warning” collided with her car and “t-boned” her vehicle, which resulted in injuries to the plaintiff.
The lawsuit also accuses DeGeneres of exhibiting “negligent conduct (that) fell below the standard of care of a reasonable person,” and alleges that the comedian “negligently caused, or contributed to causing plaintiff’s vehicle to be collided with by the defendants’ vehicle.”
The woman claims she has suffered “multiple serious personal injuries and damages” as a result of the collision, along with wage loss, accrued hospital and medical expenses, “loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress and anxiety.”
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She is suing DeGeneres for general negligence and an undisclosed amount of compensatory damages.
DeGeneres has not publicly addressed the allegations from the new lawsuit and was last seen on an Italian vacation with her wife, Portia de Rossi.
The lawsuit comes after DeGeneres confirmed that U.S. President Donald Trump is the reason she left the United States and moved to the U.K.
In her first public appearance since leaving the U.S. last year, DeGeneres was asked at a conversation event in July if the reports that she moved to the U.K. because of Trump, 79, were correct, and she simply said, “Yes.”
“We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, ‘He got in,’” DeGeneres told broadcaster Richard Bacon in Cheltenham, England. “And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here.’”
DeGeneres had nothing but good things to say about her new home in the aristocratic Cotswolds region, telling Bacon that life “is just better” in the U.K.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” she said. “We’re just not used to seeing this kind of beauty. The villages and the towns and the architecture — everything you see is charming and it’s just a simpler way of life.
“It’s clean. Everything here is just better. The way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here.”
DeGeneres and de Rossi moved to England last November after selling their home in Montecito, Calif., in August.
At the time, The Wrap spoke to sources close to the comedian and the Arrested Development star, who told the outlet the couple are likely to “never” return to the U.S. on a permanent basis.
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