Ellen DeGeneres Offers Explanation For George Bush Seating Controversy

Ellen DeGeneres has a very simple explanation following a controversy about her decision to sit next to former President George W. Bush at the Dallas Cowboys game Sunday.

“I’m friends with George Bush,” DeGeneres said Monday on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” “In fact, I’m friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs that I have.”

“We’re all different, and I think that we’ve forgotten that that’s OK.”

DeGeneres and the former Republican president were caught on camera having a laugh while seated side by side in Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ private suite with their wives Laura Bush and Portia de Rossi sitting on either side.

Twitter users were surprised at the unusual seating arrangement, and some were angry to see, as DeGeneres put it, “a gay Hollywood liberal sitting next to a conservative Republican president.”

“Just because I don’t agree with someone on everything doesn’t mean that I’m not going to be friends with them,” DeGeneres said Monday.

“When I say be kind to one another, I don’t mean only the people that think the same way that you do. I mean be kind to everyone.”

Of course, critics weren’t simply unhappy that DeGeneres sat with a conservative, but rather one who launched a war that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.