InstagramDoes Ellen DeGeneres think she'd be a good mother?
"I think I would," the comedienne said on NBC's Today Tuesday, "but that's not enough to have kids."
Since marrying Scandal guest star Portia de Rossi in 2008, the talk show host has said on numerous occasions that she has no intention of ever having children. Though she and de Rossi would likely make excellent parents, the TV personality hasn't changed her mind about starting a family. "I love kids. But that's such a big commitment. And it seems long-term. It seems like a commitment that you have to stick with. And I just don't know if I can—it's too risky. Like, what if I don't like the kid?" she said with a laugh. "What if it turns out that it's not as cute as I wanted or as talented? I'm gonna compare it to all these kids that I have on this show that are so smart and so funny. And I'm like, 'You are nowhere near these kids I had on today. Sit down and look at this kid I just had on! Do you know all those presidents?'"
"Never say never!" Matt Lauer warned her. "I think you'd be an amazing mom."
"I'm getting too old," the 57-year-old funny lady said. "Listen, they're cute, those little kids, but no."
DeGeneres also debunked rumors about her marriage, explaining that tabloid stories are "not real."
"I'm just more flabbergasted by the fact that someone needs to make up a story. There's never been a point where we were breaking up or divorcing or fighting. None of these stories are even remotely true. I don't know the magazines and I don't have a publicist, so I don't know," she said. "I have a very small team around me...I don't want to know that stuff, so when someone does bring it up to me, I'm like, 'Really?' I don't know how many times they've said that we've broken up, but I know that they have."
Lauer, who conducted his interview on the set of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, also asked the Emmy winner how long she'll do the show. "I can't answer that question right now. I really can't," she said.
Does she still get out of bed excited to head to set?
"I get out of bed every day. And I'm excited. I do get out of bed every day," she joked. "Some days I'm tired and some days even when I'm tried and I get here. And you know—the audience is unbelievable."
DeGeneres was on Today to promote her new sitcom One Big Happy, premiering tonight on NBC. She serves as an executive producer on the series, which stars Kelly Brook, Elisha Cuthbert and Nick Zano.
What does an executive producer do? "I don't do everything, but I brush their hair in the morning," she deadpanned. "I don't make all [their clothes]. I do make some. And I'll vacuum at night if it's dirty." On a serious note, she said, "I don't get involved with everything. I do read the scripts and I do have notes."
One Big Happy tells the story of a woman named Lizzy (Cuthbert), who is expecting a baby with BFF Luke (Zano). Their friendship gets complicated when Luke marries Prudence (Brook) on a whim. "The story is about best friends, and here's a woman who happens to be gay who wants to have a child," DeGeneres said. Unlike her own '90s series, she said, "This is just a matter of fact, 'I'm gay and I want to have a kid.'"
(E! and NBC are both members of the NBCUniversal family.)