After Endless Allegations Of Racism, Intimidation, & Mental Abuse, The Ellen Show Is Being Vetted
If you’ve been keeping up with celebrity gossip or have browsed the magazine covers as you wait to purchase your groceries, you know the pandemic has been awful for the once beloved Ellen DeGeneres and her legacy. We’ve previously shared DeGeneres has banned people like Caitlyn Jenner and Kathy Griffin from her show and accounts of her standing up for her friend’s homophobic antics, but more recently she’s come under fire for tasteless jokes about jailbirds and homosexuality, which sparked a long list of allegations from her staff that she’s an all around horrible person behind the scenes of her daytime talk show. The horror stories from those who have worked for, under, or around DeGeneres were once well-kept Hollywood secrets, but it seems no one wants to stay silent anymore. To her fans’ and our surprise, some of these stories are really ring-around-the-toilet grimy, like the staff member who claims she picks someone new to hate every new day.
B) A new staff member was told "every day she picks someone different to really hate. It's not your fault, just suck it up for the day and she'll be mean to someone else the next day. They didn't believe it but it ended up being entirely true.
— @benjaminjs.bsky.social (@BenjaminJS) March 20, 2020
Last week, Buzzfeed released an extensive article after speaking with a handful of DeGeneres’ former employees. The stories didn’t sway far from the current narrative: Behind the scenes of The Ellen Show is allegedly a dimension of hell. This doesn’t bode well for DeGeneres… who now actually may be on her way to a potential cancellation.
According to Variety, WarnerMedia AKA Warner Brothers Television (DeGeneres’ distribution company) is fully investigating the workplace culture with the help of a third party HR firm after the many allegations and Buzzfeed’s scathing report. The firm will be interviewing current and former employees of the talk show and will allow them to openly explain their experiences working underneath DeGeneres and the rest of leadership. Although how many current employees does DeGeneres actually have – she did reduce their pay by 60% at the beginning of the current global pandemic– and then overturned that decision after the news went public. Buzzfeed’s lengthy report tells that it isn’t necessarily just DeGeneres herself who is the cause of the problems, senior management and Executives producers have also trickled down a toxic work environment, leading employees to claim the workplace is racist, negative, and low level staff walks on egg shells afraid of being fired at any moment for someone who will easily take their place. One former Black female employee once tried bringing up her concerns with alleged racism and she was dubbed by producers and colleagues as the “PC Police.”
Will Ellen follow in Jimmy Kimmel’s footsteps? If you’ve ever been on Hollywood Boulevard and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, you’ll know Grauman’s Chinese Theatre where Jimmy Kimmel films his talk show no longer displays his name on the marquee after he faced racism allegations last month at the height of the George Floyd protests. The backlash from the internet caused him to admit he’s “taking a break” from his show.
In the current climate of active and overlooked misconduct, in every aspect, of the entertainment industry, and watching many celebrities “right their wrongs”, is it possible DeGeneres could actually get her television show canceled? Or is it time for DeGeneres to step down from her throne and let someone else with less baggage take the mantel before the brand is dead in the water? After this investigation, the jig could be up.
Writer’s Note: This is the opinion of one Instinct Magazine contributor and does not reflect the views of Instinct Magazine itself or fellow contributors.
Sources: Variety , Buzzfeed , Variety , TalentRecap
