HOUSE-FLIPPER ELLEN DEGENERES SCRAMBLES TO PROTECT HER FORTUNE AMID THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC.
Flip or flop? Flop!
Ellen DeGeneres has put the Beverly Hills home she purchased from Adam Levine in May 2019 on the market, but it doesn’t look like she’s going to make a profit off it. In fact, with the COVID-19 pandemic destroying the luxury housing market in California, it appears she stands to lose millions. Ellen is panicking and trying to unload the mansion before things get worse, a source tells BIGGERSTARS.”She bought it for $42.5 million and has listed it for $58 million, but she won’t get anything close to that. I’d be surprised if she gets $30 million.” The talk show host, who has bought and sold roughly 20 properties since 2003, is also trying to sell her home in Montecito, Calif. In January she paid $3.6 million for the property and is now selling it for $6.9 million. “She’s feeling the housing crunch big-time. And she has so much of her money tied up in these homes, she could go broke!”
The crisis also comes at a time when Ellen, 62, is facing backlash for trying to save money by reportedly slashing Ellen’s crew members’ salaries and using a cheaper, nonunion crew at her home to film the show during the quarantine. “Ellen is famous for being cheap,” says the source. “Maybe the prospect of her losing millions on these investment properties caused her to take a hard line at the show.” But perhaps she should have been more compassionate, says the source: “Her reputation took a big hit for the salary-slashing incident, and that can hurt the sale of these two properties even more. Having her name attached to something used to be a big plus. That may not be the case anymore with all these horror stories coming out about her.”
Ellen’s wife, Portia de Rossi, 47, isn’t nearly as stressed out about the whole housing slump. “She doesn’t understand Ellen’s obsession with money, and it’s causing major issues in their relationship,” says the source, noting that the couple was already having problems. “Ellen creates these elaborate scenarios in her head about going broke, and Portia can’t take it anymore. This could be the final straw for her.”