Ellen DeGeneres’ apology called inappropriate, ex-workers blame host for not taking ownership of 'be kind' motto
On September 21, Ellen DeGeneres returned to her namesake chat show ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ and started it with her monologue, where she apologized and took responsibility “for what happens at my show.” The last few months have been full of controversies for Ellen as a number of her former and current employees accused her chat show of a “toxic” work environment.
But her apology was not appreciated by the employees who claimed that the 62-year-old did not take their accusations of toxicity, racism, sexual harassment and misconduct seriously as she sarcastically asked the audience on-air, “How was everybody’s summer? Good, yeah? Mine was great. Super terrific.” She also went on to say that “Let me give you some advice out there if anybody's thinking of changing their title or giving yourself a nickname, do not go with the 'be kind' lady. Don’t do it.”
“Not only did Ellen turn my trauma, turn our traumas, into a joke, she somehow managed to make this about her,” an ex-worker said. Another one added: “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?’”
Besides, DeGeneres making “inappropriate jokes” about her workers’ traumas also hurt them. “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 worker said. Some even blamed the comedian for not actually taking responsibility for the show’s “be kind” motto. “I don’t feel sorry that she’s in a sh*t 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,” a former employee told BuzzFeed News, adding: “There’s nothing wrong with being the ‘be kind' lady if you’re actually true to your word.”
Another former employee said that DeGeneres’ monologue gave them more pain and sadness instead of closure. “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 person said, adding it would be better if someone at Warner Bros. contacted them and 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 f*cked-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,” the employee stated.
However, a current employee of DeGeneres was happy with her apology as they said, “It’s kind of amazing that this is being discussed on her show. To actually go from an environment where nothing is said and everyone keeps their head down to now when it’s the topic of her first show back is pretty amazing. Whether or not I believe in this message that she is saying is another issue.”