'The drama going on! Ellen DeGeneres dishes backstage dirt about American Idol

By Amelia Proud

Last updated at 7:03 AM on 30th October 2011

She endured just one, highly criticised tenure as a judge on American Idol, but it's only now that Ellen DeGeneres has spoken out about why she left the hit series.

The 53-year-old chat show behemoth opened up in an interview with Parade magazine about some of the less saccharine aspets of the Fox talent show.

Predictably it was all down to inflating egos.

Don't rain on my Parade: Ellen DGeneres opens up in this week's issue of the magazine

But it wasn't Ellen's fellow judges struggling to fit their heads through doors, despite a suggestion that she didn't gel with Simon Cowell, 51 , but rather the contestants that were responsible for all the drama.

She told the magazine: 'It was disappointing to hear things about the kids, the drama going on.

Some of them are not as grateful as you would expect.

All of a sudden they have fan mail, millions of people saying they’re great, and some of them just stop appreciating it.'

But Ellen, who is married to actress Portia De Rossi, 38 , has never stopped feeling grateful for a reversal in her fortunes.

Partners: Ellen with her wife Portia at a concert for the William J. Clinton Foundation in LA earlier this month 

The star spoke candidly about the terrible period when Hollywood turned it's back on her after she came out as a lesbian in 1997.

She said: 'I didn’t work, didn’t have any money. No one [in the business] would even talk to me on the phone.'

The NBC host said that her family had been more understanding.

Talking baout coming out to them when she was 18, she recalled: 'If anything, it was a shock to me.

I’d always known that I had crushes on girls, but I also liked boys-though I wasn’t drawn to them romantically.

For me to get in touch with myself enough to recognize that I was gay, and then not to stay private about it, was a huge step.'

To read more from Ellen go to: www.parade.com

Success: Ellen is tied into a three year deal with NBC for her show, here with Brad Pitt