Ellen DeGeneres Will Talk About The Allegations Against Her (Of Which There Are More)

Ellen DeGeneres’ daytime talk show Ellen is premiering, as usual, this fall, even though it’s been hit with an Everest-sized mountain of reputation-damaging press. Ellen confirmed that the 18th season of her show is a go. And not only will the show finally resume filming in its usual studio on the Warner Bros. lot, but it will also kick off with Ellen herself talking about the allegations her and her show.

I’m sure she’s got her writing team working very hard on a monologue that balances inoffensive jokes with human-style sincerity. Although those writers probably shouldn’t submit their final draft until about six seconds before the cameras start rolling. Because, of course, there are new allegations that Ellen is a terrible, horrible employer.

Deadline reports that Ellen’s first show back will happen on Monday, September 21. There won’t be a studio audience, because we’re still in the middle of a pandemic. So, tWitch is going to DJ to an audience of Ellen, Tiffany Haddish (her first guest of the season), a couple of camera operators and some sound people, and the remaining producers that didn’t get fired for allegedly being awful to employees. Since leaving the studio in March, Ellen has found herself on the receiving end of allegations that included the ones involving her former senior production team (Kevin Leman, Ed Glavin, and Jonathan Norman), allegations that Ellen is a cold psychopath on set, that she knew employees were treated like shit and did nothing (or, that she actively encouraged it), that the Kind, Benevolent Ellen thing was an act, and that she was allegedly trying to save a buck by using a non-union crew at her house.

Ellen has reportedly apologized to her staff in an email and has allegedly tried to undo some of the damage by doing the barest of employee benefit minimums, like paid time off for funerals and birthdays. Ellen was confronted last month by a pap who asked if she had anything to say about the situation, and she replied that she’d address her fans directly. Well, Ellen released a statement regarding her first episode back, saying:

“I can’t wait to get back to work and back to our studio. And, yes, we’re gonna talk about it.”

I really thought Ellen’s bubble buddy Kevin Hart would have been her chosen co-host for this fireside image rehabilitation chat. Or maybe, Ellen is planning to scare Tiffany by having Kevin pop out from behind a large presentation board that reads: Ellen’s 10-Point Plan For Respecting and Loving Her Wonderful Employees. Who knows. We’ll just have to wait until September 21st! Although I do have a feeling it’s going to be much of the same, which is that Ellen allegedly didn’t know her staff was being terrorized by those three fired producers, and that she forgot all her employees were human beings and not hard-working colony ants.

But while Ellen (allegedly) tries to be a better boss on her show, The Daily Mail heard from a source, who claims they worked at one of Ellen and Portia de Rossi’s homes in California for several months sometime in the past decade. The source says that Ellen is allegedly a nightmare to work for. They say that Ellen was hyper demanding and extremely picky, like allegedly complaining about where a salt shaker was placed, or how much foam was in her latte. They also claim that every day, Ellen would release a list of complaints from the previous day. Ellen also allegedly left sneaky little traps around her house involving match sticks, to see if her cleaning people were cleaning every single inch of her house. One time Ellen allegedly got mad at a chef for using a guest bathroom instead of a staff bathroom. The source says:

“Sometimes she would yell at us but it was more about the incredibly condescending tone she would use. She treated you like you were nothing. She was going to torture you and you were just going to sit there and listen to it because you were being paid. Ellen was the worst person that I’ve ever met in my life. She takes pleasure in firing people. Before I took the position, people were warning me not to take it.”

That source claimed that Ellen once fired a household employee two hours into their first shift. The alleged employee was fired after a few months, but the reason wasn’t given to The Daily Mail.

But if you ask Ellen’s people, which Page Six did, they will tell you that the allegations are lies, and that they can’t even verify the past employee.

“This was one person [whose] employment [Daily Mail] said they could not fully verify but they went ahead with the story anyway. Many of the claims in the story are things that had been out in media previously by other ‘sources’ and in talking to people who work for Ellen are absolutely not true.”

This anonymous former employee complaint comes not too long after we learned that Ellen and Portia’s home burglary was rumored to have been an inside job. Maybe it wasn’t even a robbery? Maybe a couple of pissed-off housekeepers and a mistreated chef decided to give Ellen a taste of her own prank-pulling medicine by moving a pile of diamonds and watches into a spare bedroom for “cleaning,” and “forgot” them in there. And they all left Ellen a little note in the morning that said that in the event Ellen started treating them better, they might just so happen to remember where they put them.

Pic: Wenn.com