Ellen DeGeneres' wife quits acting

Portia de Rossi, Ellen DeGeneres's wife, said goodbye to her on-camera career almost two years ago.

Speaking with her partner on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the 45-year-old actress revealed that she decided to quit and start a business instead.

"I was approaching 45 and I just kind of ... was wondering is there something that I could tackle now that I've never done before that would be really challenging and different. I kind of knew what acting would look like for me for the next 10,20 years, so I decided to quit and start a business," she said in the interview.

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De Rossi starred as Lindsay Bluth Funke on Arrested Development from 2003 to 2013. She also played Elizabeth North on Scandal from 2014 to 2017, before she was written off the series of Shonda Rhimes, creator of the political thriller.

But not long after her decision to quit from acting, an exciting acting project came her way.

She recounted calling Mitch Hurwitz, creator of Arrested Development.

"I said, 'If there is a season 5, I won't be doing it because I quit acting.' And he seemed really understanding and he totally got it. We had a great conversation, and then he wrote me into five episodes. Don't know how it happened but yes, I am on season 5," she told DeGeneres.

De Rossi rose to prominence after she starred as Nelle Porter on the American drama series, Ally McBeal. That role earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Aside from being an actress, de Rossi is also a published author.

In 2010, she published her autobiography, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, where she chronicled her struggles in life, including having anorexia nervosa and bulimia and being misdiagnosed with having lupus.

De Rossi married DeGeneres in 2008, after four years of dating.