Some Current And Former “Ellen” Employees Didn’t Buy Ellen DeGeneres’ TV Apology
Yesterday, Ellen DeGeneres was finally released from her multi-million dollar jail cell and returned to the Warner Bros. studio lot to film the 18th season of Ellen. But before Ellen could celebrate, she had to first execute an apology that would sound convincing enough to keep people from switching the channel to a Ninja blender infomercial. It was up to the viewer to look into Ellen’s eyes and determine whether she was really sorry, or just really fucking sorry she didn’t make Ellen employees take a blood oath to never speak ill of their leader. Well, BuzzFeed (basically Ellen’s unofficial Human Resources Department at this point) is reporting that they’ve spoken to some past and present Ellen employees, and those employees thought Ellen’s apology was faker than those potted white studio set orchids behind her.
BuzzFeed reports that the biggest problem the anonymous employees had was that Ellen’s monologue addressing the workplace harassment and toxicity was full of jokes. Past and present employees didn’t think it was cute of Ellen to laugh over allegations of racism and abuse. They also had a big problem with Ellen keeping the focus of her monologue on her own hurt feelings.
“Not only did Ellen turn my trauma, turn our traumas, into a joke, she somehow managed to make this about her,” one former employee said.
“When she said, ‘Oh, my summer was great’ and that was supposed to be funny I thought, ‘It’s funny that you had a rough summer because everyone was calling out all of the allegations of your toxic work environment and now you’re the one suffering?’” another former employee said.
“When you’re talking about people who have accused her leadership of the seriousness of sexual misconduct, I don’t think it’s appropriate to have jokes in the monologue,” a former employee said.
In her apology, Ellen explained that she embraced the message of kindness after the suicide death of a young gay man, and that’s she jokingly regrets becoming the “Be Kind Lady.” She stressed that she’s human, and what you see on TV is who she really is. One former employee side-eyed that.
“I don’t feel sorry that she’s in a shit load of trouble because she branded herself the ‘be kind’ person. She’s acting like it was something she said in passing that just stuck with her. It’s not something that stuck with her, it’s not an accident. She went forward with this idea and this marketing strategy that was not true behind the scenes. There’s nothing wrong with being the ‘be kind’ lady if you’re actually true to your word.”
Another former employee, who participated in Warner Media’s investigation into the allegations this summer, says that Ellen has been doing a lot of talking, but none of it has been at the people who were allegedly impacted by Ellen’s toxic workplace. Also, that investigation sounds like it really didn’t do much but just use up paper and pens.
“The right thing would be to follow up with these people who are humans who were affected by this. They have a responsibility to kind of close this chapter of our lives and move on.” The former employee added that they would have preferred for someone at Warner Bros. to reach out to them and “say something like, ‘We’re so sorry this happened to you,’ not for Ellen to go on air and say, ‘I heard this happened and I’m sorry if it happened to you.’”
“It was like, ‘Tell us all of the most fucked-up things that happened to you for the investigation, and now that we’ve written it all down, see you later.’ It just feels like there’s no ending to this for people who came forward and said things that happened to them and reopened these wounds and rehashed these memories.”
So remember in Ellen’s monologue when she swore that Ellen was different now, and that it was a whole new show and blah blah blah, but she didn’t really get into specifics about how she or the show were any different? Aapparently she has also withheld that master plan from current employees. And the plan might be bullshit?
A current employee told BuzzFeed News they’ve been frustrated with minimal communication from their superiors about the direction and vision for the new season, and that all of their duties were “put on hold” until DeGeneres delivered her monologue. The employee said they’re relieved to be able to move forward with work now that the premiere aired, but that “it’s all tactical.”
“It’s always tactical. The average person will listen to it and make their own choices, but what people don’t always take into account is that information is power, and she’s sharing it now because it’s for premiere week and it’s to get viewers back, and that just feels the opposite of what this message is about.”
I guess they could just ask Ellen what the plan is? That is, if they’re now allowed to look at Ellen in the eyes and address her personally. Actually, don’t anyone do that. I’m scared that unless Ellen has specifically mentioned that it’s ok to make eye contact, someone is going to find themselves on the wrong end of sneaker scrubbing duty.
Pic: YouTube