VIDEO: Watch Ellen DeGeneres inspiring speech at the Teen Choice Awards

The Teen Choice Awards ran last night, with 25 million American teens voting for their favourite actors, bands, kisses, movies, TV shows and a whole lot more across a staggering number of categories.

And the Teen Choice comedian of the year was hotly contested with a quartet of dudes included - George Lopez, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Kevin Hart.

But the real battle was definitely between the ladies on the list which included veteran player Ellen DeGeneres and new kid on the block (relatively speaking) Amy Schumer. And Ellen took the grand prize, taking to the stage to pick up her celebratory surfboard.

The 57 year old was thankful for her many fans for their votes and also took the opportunity to send out a message that being different might feel like a hard thing to live with at a young age but there’s a positive spin on that as you get older. Check it out.

It’s a positive message that extends far beyond sexuality to cover the way young people often feel like they’re strange or different from the rest of society, and it’s great to see someone with Ellen’s profile mentioning it in passing in this kind of setting.

DeGeneres was also celebrating seven years of marriage to 42 year old Portia de Rossi who married at their home in August 2008.

Ellen continues to appear on her own Ellen TV talk show and will also be heard reprising her role in Pixar sequel Finding Dory, set for release in July 2016.