Ellen DeGeneres has always been known for her humor, honesty, and the ease with which she turns life’s awkward moments into laughter. But when she opened up about her experience with COVID-19, the story she told wasn’t funny—it was raw, unexpected, and, as she put it, “incredibly painful.” What caught her off guard most wasn’t the fever, fatigue, or loss of taste that dominated headlines—it was something far less discussed: excruciating back pain.
In December 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Ellen announced that she had contracted COVID despite taking every precaution possible. She quarantined, followed medical advice, and expected to feel miserable for a while, just like everyone else who’d gone through it. But what she didn’t expect was that her back would feel like it was being “pulled apart from the inside.”
“What they don’t tell you,” she later explained, “is that you’ll have severe back pain. I had no idea that was a symptom until I talked to a few other people who went through the same thing.”
At first, she thought it might be a pulled muscle. But the pain only intensified, spreading across her back and making even simple movements unbearable. It was a symptom no one had warned her about—one she later learned many others experienced too. And by speaking openly about it, Ellen helped shed light on a hidden part of COVID that often went unmentioned.