Ellen and Portia
to Tie the Knot

No sooner did the California supreme court give the go-ahead to same-sex marriage than Ellen DeGeneres, arguably pop culture's most popular lesbian, announced that she would be getting hitched with her longtime partner, actress Portia de Rossi.

In a statement on Advocate.com Thursday, DeGeneres joked that she was registered at Crate & Barrel -- she's not, we checked -- but in a clip from the episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show that was scheduled to broadcast Friday, the talk-show host announced the news to her studio audience -- which included a beaming De Rossi.

"This is very exciting, I gotta say," began DeGeneres. "Yesterday, if you haven't heard, the California supreme court overturned a ban on gay marriage." After the audience cheers, she continued, "So I would like to say, for the first time, I am announcing I am getting married," which made the crowd go berserk and give her a standing ovation. After the hollering dies down, DeGeneres joked, "Thank you. I'll tell you who the lucky guy is soon."

Blinking back tears, she added, "If I'm this emotional now just saying it, I can't imagine how that's gonna be. It's something that of course we've wanted to do and we wanted it to be legal and we're just very excited."

No date has been announced for the nuptials, and representatives for DeGeneres and De Rossi had no further comment, although De Rossi released this statement to The Advocate earlier this week: "Love is the most personal of human emotions. I am deeply grateful to the state of California for allowing all of its citizens the right to express their love equally under the law." (Alonso Duralde, The Advocate)