Ex-producer claims Ellen snarled and walked past her when she brought her daughter to meet the host
An ex-producer of ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ has made some new shocking revelations. While appearing on the Australian breakfast program 'Sunrise', Hedda Muskat claimed that she was “emotionally abused” when she was working for the chat show.
Muskat, who had been working on the famous show since its first season in 2003, claimed that she was “fired for no reason” in 2004. “I was more emotionally abused, fired for no reason... they told me that they were just going to take the show in a different direction. They ended up giving my job to a guy I trained who was about 24 years old and had no experience,” the former employee said. She was fired before the Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony where Ellen won the 'Outstanding Talk Show' award based on various segments produced by Muskat.
Recalling one of the incidents during her tenure at the talk show, Muskat said she was called into executive producer Ed Glavin’s office once and was asked to hand over her contacts and sources. But she did not provide the contacts given journalistic integrity. “From that moment I was on the hit list and no longer invited to staff meetings... wasn't allowed to sit at their table at the Emmy's — it was a very egg-shell environment,” Muskat revealed.
She also claimed that Ellen DeGeneres’ behavior was poor from the initial days. “When you walk into her office for example, to pitch her your segments, there was always a snarl. I always felt that I was never welcome in her office, she always hurried me, like 'get to the point, get to the point’,” Muskat said, adding that after a few months she was even asked to not to go into the 62-year-old's office.
During her, Wednesday, August 5, appearance on Sunrise, Muskat said that one day she took her daughter to the set because she wanted to introduce her to Ellen. But in return she got disrespect. “She just snarled again, walked by and I was flabbergasted, she didn't even make eye contact. I was told later to no longer bring my daughter to work... I was told... ‘she doesn't want kids in the office’,” she added. Muskat also explained why she has come forward and not hesitating to put her name to her claims as she stated, “I'm coming forward because... she trivialized and minimalized everybody's accusations... nobody wanted to listen to us until now.”
These new explosive details came after Muskat, in an interview with The Wrap, said that Ellen had an idea about what was happening behind the scenes and was well aware of the toxic work culture. “I had never seen this before. I had never been around a toxic host,” she told the news organization.
Muskat also recalled an incident while speaking to The Wrap and said when once Glavin scolded a crew member in front of his colleagues, Ellen giggled instead of saying something. "He just went off on them. His whole face turned red… We were stunned. I was waiting for Ellen to say something. 'Whoa, Ed, don’t talk like that'. Do you know what she did? She giggled. She crossed her legs up on the chair and she said, ‘Well, I guess every production needs their dog’… And from then we knew. Ed was going to be the barking dog — her dog," Muskat disclosed.
She added: "You could just see everybody’s faces go stiff. We’re professionals; we’re adults. We don’t need a dog to get us to do our jobs... She was the only one giggling.”