VegNews readers awarded Ellen DeGeneres “Favorite Celebrity” in the VegNews 2009 Veggie Awards, and the VegNews editors agreed, naming her Veg Media Maven of the Year:

2009 marked the second coming out for Ellen DeGeneres — this time, as a crusader for compassion — with the official announcement of her veganism. From TV to Twitter, DeGeneres commands a major media presence that she’s putting to good use.

I wonder if vegans remember a time not too long ago when they hated Ellen for putting her major media presence to bad use. Here’s what some members of Vegan Forum had to say about Ellen DeGeneres back in November of 2006:

Steph: I was a huge fan of hers for years. Until yesterday when she was a guest on the David Letterman show. During the interview, she brought up the fact she recently saw the new film, Fast Food Nation. She was saying how after seeing the cows being slaughtered in the film, it influenced her into becoming vegetarian. Her punchline to her “joke” was then, a day or so later she saw a steak cooking, and said something to the effect of, “when I saw the steak cooking, it looked so delicious that I became un-vegetarian and I don’t care about the cows at all.” (laughter and applause from audience followed.)

What a hypocrite and phony. To make light of those of us who actually are trying to reduce and eliminate the suffering and needless slaughter of animals for a cheap laugh, while bringing in mega-bucks with her pseudo “love” of animals on credit card commercials. She now makes my stomach turn and I will no longer watch her show or support her. What a disappointment.

PainterLady: Ellen is a soul sucking leech feeding off of society!

Focus: I watched a video of Ellen at a Peta event and she claimed she was a vegetarian. My first thought was “Here is a feminist who is a vegetarian and not a vegan, go figure.” Now, to hear that she said this on letterman is just sad. She’s quite aware of what animals endure. I’m with you on this one Steph, I won’t support her in the future either.

PainterLady: She’s consciously hindering a movement that protects innocent animals. She is evil. Maybe people really do sell their souls for money, she most certainly is. She needs to read The Sexual Politics of Meat! Biatch!

Windfall: I just think its awful, and as people have said no real vegetarian would ever think that kind of *joke* was funny.

Emzy1985: I think the hype about Ellen in the gay world is obscene. Yes she did have the first leading female gay part ever. Yes she brought gay issues to the frontline. Yes she has helped gay people become more accepted. She has however learned to help one discriminated group but hindered the progress of another. I thought she was for rights….but obviously not. She can now actually and officially kiss my arse!

Jiffy: Mmmm, Ellen Degenerate it seems.

Powder: Way to trivialize the lives of other sentient beings. Ellen Degenerate, indeed, Jiffy.

Apparently homophobes aren’t the only ones who can think to turn “DeGeneres” to “DeGenerate.” But when this thread started back up again in early 2009, after Ellen announced she was vegan, the Vegan Forum crew suddenly seemed to find “DeGenerous” more apt.

Mahk: Several sources are reporting that Ellen Degeneres and her recently married partner, Portia De Rossi not only had a vegan wedding but also have switched to veganism! Go Ellen!

Kriz: Great that she went vegan! It’s definitely a long road that many of us have taken leading up to veganism, so I’ll take back what I said before and I’ll just keep in mind how long it took me…. about 30 years or so.

cobweb: Maybe the joke she made about the cows was IRONIC and an attempt to make people realise how hypocritical they are (mostly). I’m glad her and her missus have gone vegan, that’s great.

Sarabi: I tried to write Ellen an e-mail thanking her, but that’ll have to wait because it was too long.