Ellen Degeneres
“Be kind to one another.”
If you’ve ever watched even a single episode of The Ellen Degeneres Show then surely you’re familiar with that phrase. Becoming her sort of signature sign-off, Ellen has relied on this and other messages, along with a whole lot of charitable deeds and giveaways, to build up a persona full of positivity and goodwill.
So… imagine how jarring it must have been for her loyal followers to suddenly wake up one day to an overwhelming deluge of horrible accusations against her — which, in contrast to the catchphrase, framed her as “manipulative” and “toxic.”
Interestingly, in the case of Ellen, it wasn’t just one negative incident that huge numbers of former employees, friends, and fans kept citing over and over again to cancel her. Rather, there appeared to be a very clear pattern of abuse of power and a domino effect happening here. One released claim of mistreatment led to the next, which led to the next, and so on, until there was just no denying that Ellen had been officially “cancelled” by the general public. It was clear that not only did people feel more comfortable sharing their bad experiences interacting with her after others did first, but that they also felt more empowered to do so, standing strongly against the metaphorical “big guy” who could “do no wrong” in the eyes of many.
One of the first to speak out against the host was beauty influencer, NikkieTutorials, in February 2020. Nikkie was a guest on The Ellen Degeneres Show, invited to discuss her experience coming out as a transgender woman within the world of entertainment and YouTube. However, during a different talk show appearance a few weeks later, Nikkie alleged that Ellen never greeted her before or after her appearance, wouldn’t let her use the guest bathroom because it was reserved for the Jonas Brothers (rude!), and came off as dismissive towards her during the actual interview.
Next up, in April, comedian Kevin T. Porter crowdsourced “insane stories you’ve heard about Ellen being mean” on Twitter, in exchange for donating to a local food bank. The gravity of this thread speaks for itself — gaining over 2.8 thousand replies, it includes claims that Ellen got a waitress fired from her job for having chipped nail polish, required people to chew specific gum before speaking to her because of her “sensitive nose,” and even had her staff explicitly instruct interns to “never look her in the eye.”
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Interestingly, as all of these allegations from regular people or lesser-known influencers arose, Ellen’s closest friends, other hugely powerful celebrities, worked to invalidate these claims and instead stand behind Ellen’s character. Superstar producer Scooter Braun, singer Katy Perry, and actor Ashton Kutcher all tweeted their support for Ellen, citing their own “positive experiences” with her and her show. In this way, we see that perhaps the real indicator for a person’s kindness should be more so how they treat the “smallest person” in the room, not other celebrities. After all, it’s not often that we see celebrities canceling their own kind.
So here, again, we see just how much cancel culture can empower the everyday person who has been wronged or simply frustrated by a celebrity's wrongdoing. Even when the accused celebrity stays silent, and other powerful celebrities begin to vouch for their innocence, the masses of "cancel-ers" don't back down. If anything, in my eyes, seeing other powerful, high-profile people back up a cancelled celeb only catalyzes the original "cancellation" further. It points out the disparity in privilege between the celebrities and the all of us media consumers, and shows that some celebs may never understand the ways that their status and ignorance can fuel acts of misconduct that consumers just won't stand for.
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And then, just like that, the pandemic quickly began. And this caused a slew of new accusations against Ellen, which were objectively, the most harmful because of what they alleged and could do to her career. First, in mid-April, as the effects of COVID forced Ellen to start recording show episodes from her million-dollar mansion in California, she remarked, “One thing I've learned from being in quarantine is that people — this is like being in jail, is what this is. It's mostly because I've been wearing the same clothes for 10 days, and everyone in here is gay."
Now, many people found that joke to be pretty insensitive not only because it unveiled her distinct wealth and privilege, but also because prison inmates have been treated especially inhumanely during the pandemic — with 1 in 5 prisoners in the U.S. contracting COVID, at a rate more than four times as high as the general population. So, as is commonplace during an instance of cancel culture, flocks of social media users took to Twitter to express their disdain.
Additionally, it was around that same time that many of Ellen’s employees found themselves displaced and temporarily out of work, as her in-house filming staff was reduced, some even replaced by nonunion hires. Notably, Variety broke an exclusive story which interviewed a number of her regular crew members now “furious,” having “received no written communication about the status of their working hours, pay, or inquiries about their mental and physical health from producers for over a month.” This article sparked even more outrage on Twitter, as people now thought that Ellen was not only rude, high-maintenance, and insensitive — but also perfectly okay with cheating her own employees at the height of a novel pandemic.
In light of all of these allegations that just continued to pile and pile up, along with calls from former fans to cancel The Ellen Degeneres Show all together, WarnerMedia, the show’s parent company, launched an official internal investigation into the workplace culture present behind-the-scenes. Previously the most powerful person in the room, now Ellen herself was being investigated by even higher-ups for instances of wrongdoing, intimidation, and harassment. And as I see it, without the incessant pushing, pleading, and most of all, attention that came along with cancel culture, these allegations may not have ever been taken seriously and Ellen may not have ever been questioned.
Yet also, I, too, find it hard to believe that Ellen would have been questioned in this way (or at all) if she were not a woman. We’ve heard the stories time and time again of men in positions of power, especially in Hollywood, taking advantage of others, manipulating their employees, and acting as abusive, rude, and dangerous bosses. Yet, so many times, when people come forward alleging that their treatment by these powerful men was wrong or unfair, they get dismissed or even fired, being told things like “that’s just the way he is” or “to suck it up.”
Now, I’m not trying to justify Ellen’s clearly terrible treatment of others in any way. But, could that toxic managerial style have been a product of her environment, a consequence of growing up in a male-dominated industry? Further, would so many of the men that hold power in the entertainment industry, who have allegations of misconduct against them, too, ever be greeted with as thorough and prompt an investigation as Ellen? I would hope, but I don’t know. And... I would also hope that it wouldn’t take truly thousands of accusations and a wide-scale “cancellation,” like we’ve seen, to get the ball rolling there. I digress.
In the end, however, nothing all that momentous came out of Ellen’s internal investigation. Before resuming the filming of their 18th season, three lower-level producers were fired and Ellen herself sent out an internal email (that was obtained by The Washington Post) to all employees featuring an apology. “On day one of our show, I told everyone in our first meeting that ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ would be a place of happiness — no one would ever raise their voice, and everyone would be treated with respect. Obviously, something changed, and I am disappointed to learn that this has not been the case. And for that, I am sorry," it read. In that, though, she took no responsibility whatsoever for perpetuating a terrible work environment or allowing this mistreatment against her employees to fester unacknowledged. And just like that, it was back to business as usual — minus some one million fans who felt compelled to withdraw their support.
Yet, was Ellen really insinuating that she had no idea that her managerial style made people feel this way? Was she truly apologizing because she had treated so many people poorly? Or, was she only sorry that she was once untouchable, and now caught, exposed and “cancelled,” the longevity of her award-winning talk show and “kind” persona momentarily threatened?
Sure, that may be a somewhat cynical way to view apologies and someone’s potential to learn and grow. Maybe I just feel this way because we have seen empty apologies from celebs time and time again. But, Ellen’s “cancellation” really makes you question the motives of people in power — especially when it seems that they have faced no meaningful, long-term consequences for their harmful actions nor been actively held accountable in actually making any changes. Do they care that may be treating people badly? Or, do they only care when they get caught and cancelled? Do they really mean it when they say they're sorry and want to change? Or, do they simply say those things because it's what's expected of them to continue their careers largely unscathed.
Because, to me, a celebrity apology without recognizable changed behavior is just mass manipulation.