Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey feature on four special Christmas covers of O Magazine.

DeGeneres, 51, told Winfrey, 55, why she wanted to be on the cover. She said: “It got started because I was in a CoverGirl ad that was on the inside cover of your magazine.

“I held it up on my show and said: ‘I’m on the cover of O! I’m on the inside cover, but I’m on the cover.’

“And that rolled into: ‘Well, if I’m that close, I might as well be on the cover’, and I started the campaign.”

Winfrey, who personally interviewed DeGeneres for the December issue of her magazine said: “You started your campaign and I was like: ‘Well, is she really serous?’ So we waited a couple of weeks and I decided you were.”