Watch Paparazzi

Television presenter Ellen spotted wearing Rolex

Ellen DeGeneres, long recognised as one of Hollywood's more quietly serious watch collectors, was recently spotted wearing a vintage Rolex GMT-Master reference 1675 fitted with an all-blue — or 'Blueberry' — bezel insert, a configuration that stops seasoned collectors mid-sentence.

The GMT-Master reference 1675 was Rolex's primary pilot and traveller's tool watch from its introduction in 1959 through to its discontinuation in 1980, replacing the original reference 6542. Designed in collaboration with Pan American Airways, the GMT-Master featured a 24-hour rotatable bezel that allowed pilots and frequent travellers to track a second time zone simultaneously — a genuinely practical complication at the time of its launch. The reference 1675 houses the calibre 1565 in its earliest iterations, later updated to the calibre 1575, both automatic movements with Rolex's Microstella regulation system offering solid reliability and serviceability decades on.

What makes this particular sighting noteworthy is the 'Blueberry' bezel. While the canonical GMT-Master colour scheme is the red-and-blue 'Pepsi' insert, Rolex produced a small number of reference 1675 examples with a monochromatic blue bezel — neither an official production run name nor a catalogue entry, but a genuine factory variation that collectors have since labelled 'Blueberry.' These examples are significantly rarer than standard 1675 variants and command a meaningful premium on the vintage market. Provenance, dial condition, and originality of the insert are critical value drivers for this reference.

Ellen DeGeneres has made no secret of her affinity for vintage Rolex and high-end timepieces more broadly, and this sighting is consistent with a collector who does her homework. The choice of a tool watch with genuine horological backstory rather than a contemporary precious-metal showpiece says something about how she engages with the category.

On the current grey market, a well-preserved Rolex GMT-Master reference 1675 'Blueberry' with original dial and correct insert commands prices well into five figures. With vintage Rolex values having appreciated sharply over the past decade, examples in this configuration regularly trade between $25,000 and $45,000 depending on condition — making this wrist sighting one of the more substantive celebrity watch spots in recent memory.