Ellen Shares with Her Audience

Ellen DeGeneres ripped a page out of Oprah Winfrey‘s playbook and decided to share some serious wealth with her audience. DeGeneres, who has spent the week celebrating her 60^th birthday on her titular show, shelled out $1 million to audience members.

DeGeneres and Cheerios partnered for the big giveaway. The audience was filled with folks who participated in the “One Million Acts of Good” campaign, a fact that she highlighted.

• “Thanks to every single person in this audience, it is filled with goodness and we have reached 1 million acts of good because of all of you,” DeGeneres said. “So, I wanna do something that we’ve never done before. Hold onto your Cheerios because all of you are splitting $1 million!
• “There’s no better way for me to celebrate my birthday than to share it with people like you,” she added.
• DeGeneres gave a few people in the audience shout-outs, including Kenya and John Hughes, who drove a U-Haul 800 miles and funded a mission to deliver aid to Hurricane Harvey victims. She also thanked Lori Gaines, who donated a kidney to the mother of one of her students.
• This comes on the heels of her wife Portia de Rossi appearing on her show Thursday to give her with a gorilla conservation center in her name.