Ellen DeGeneres defends herself over outrage that she sat next to George W. Bush at an NFL game

Mediaite

Fox Sports cameras briefly captured Ellen and the former president sitting next to each other and appearing to be laughing it up during Sunday's Green Bay Packers-Dallas Cowboys game. Some on Twitter quickly reacted with outrage. Out magazine called the image "disappointing, irresponsible, and dangerous." The Advocate pointed out Bush's anti-gay marriage past, Splinter called it "your revolting image of the day" and BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg tweeted "I hope Ellen enjoyed her football game with the guy who put Roberts and Alito on that court." Ellen responded to the outrage in a clip from her show released Monday night. Ellen explained she was invited by the daughter of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and was rooting for her good friend, Packers QB Aaron Rodgers. “And so people were upset,” she said of the image of her and Bush. “They thought, why is a gay Hollywood liberal sitting next to a conservative Republican president? Didn’t even notice I’m holding the brand new iPhone 11. But a lot of people were mad. And they do what people do when they’re mad, they tweet." Ellen added: "Here’s the thing. I’m friends with George Bush. In fact, I’m friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs that I have. We’re all different. And I think that we’ve forgotten that that’s OK, that we’re all different. But just because I don’t agree with someone on everything doesn’t mean I’m not going to be friends with them. When I say be kind to one another I don’t mean only the people that think the same way you do.”