100 Women We Love 2016

Here’s to this year's class of the women who inspire us, give us hope, make us laugh and make us want to get up and dance. 

ELLEN DEGENERES

It’s been 13 years since the release of Disney/Pixar’s “Finding Nemo,” so we’d given up the prospect of Ellen DeGeneres ever reprising her role as the voice of Dory, the forgetful tang fish. It’s nice to be wrong. “Finding Dory,” the long-awaited sequel opened in theaters in mid-June. And without adding spoilers here, the reviews are superb! The day after its release, DeGeneres tweeted: “Have you seen #FindingDory yet? Did you see the secret ending? Oops. Never mind. Ignore this tweet.” Meanwhile, the comedian/actor/philanthropist/talk show queen’s winning streak continues. She and Portia de Rossi, her wife, are going strong after 11 years together. Last year, DeGeneres was ranked as the 50th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes and number two on the World Pride Power list. She produced six episodes of the NBC sitcom “One Big Happy,” about a pregnant lesbian—and while the series was cancelled, DeGeneres rebounded with hits, including HGTV’s “Ellen’s Design Challenge” and “Little Big Shots,” a wunderkind talent show (also airing on NBC). Her eponymous Emmy-winning talk show is still high in the ratings, averaging 3.9 million viewers per episode. When she’s not busy with all of the above, DeGeneres does more than her share of philanthropic and humanitarian work. Yep, she’s gay—and yep, we kinda like her. –SLO


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