She is undoubtedly currently the biggest talk show host in the United States, Ellen DeGeneres has been accused for several weeks by the media of behavior that could be qualified as harassment. A press campaign so violent that the millionaire host could simply stop her daily show. A rumor that swelled all week, until last night, Saturday, where one of the producers said that the show would continue, without giving more details.
It all started, in fact, last March when comedian Kevin T. Porter launched a Twitter call after writing how far Ellen would be from her image on TV and in reality, eAccording to him, she would be “one of the meanest people alive today.” And to invite Internet users to share their anecdotes.
He then receives more than 2,600 responses, for example this employee who anonymously asserts that Ellen DeGeneres would force her staff to chew gum before speaking to her, or even go home to take a shower when she decides. Worse yet, she would choose “one person to hate” every day in a totally arbitrary fashion and spend the day beating her down.
Second step, on April 6, when Variety magazine published an exclusive survey, relating how employees of Telepictures, the company that produces the show, had seen their wages and working conditions deteriorate during confinement due to the coronavirus pandemic. But that’s not all because on July 16, it was the Buzzfeed site which revealed, in turn, that the shooting of the talk show took place in a “toxic environment” where racism and bullying were rife. The Buzzfeed investigation also relates how another employee had to take time off work after a suicide attempt: upon his return, his position was terminated.
Ellen DeGeneres, meanwhile, spoke on Thursday, July 30, in a letter sent to her teams. In the latter, which the Hollywood Reporter obtained, the host says she is “sorry” that her show is apparently no longer “this place of happiness” that she had imagined, where “no one would raise their voice and everyone would be treated with respect”. “My name is on this show, and I take responsibility for everything that happens there.”
Ellen would be one of the highest paid women on television: with 42.5 million euros per year, she would be at the head of a fortune of more than 280 million euros), according to information from the Guardian.
LGBTQ icon since coming out on the Oprah Winfrey set in 1997, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 by Barack Obama.
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