Give me the, the rundown on how to say your name.
-The rundown on it? -Yeah.
It's DeGeneres.
Sometimes in public bathrooms you'll find railings
on each side of the toilet, and you think that's
for the elderly or the handicapped.
It's not so, it's for people who are that paranoid about
catching germs they can balance themselves like...
[narrator] Ellen exploded on the scene in the early 80s
with her clean, uncomplicated comedy.
She was talking about the things that make us all laugh.
And something about the darkness,
we just lose all of our inhibitions in the darkness.
Is the popcorn really that delicious we must
shovel handfuls of it into our mouth?
Please welcome Ellen DeGeneres!
[Shrieking]
She created one of the most iconic moments
in network television history.
[Amplified] I'm gay.
[Laughing]
It really was a game changer,
and it was monumental.
Her roles in Hollywood were all about simple innocence.
[Vocalizing]
He's not coming back, you offended him!
Maybe a different dialect.
And when she launched a daytime talk show,
it was the biggest thing on air.
You just brought a friend to Bora Bora?
Yeah.
And you're just naked with your friend?
Why are you putting me on the spot like this?
Her entire stage persona was based on
being nice and kind.
Everybody loved Ellen.
She was the friend next door,
and you liked her.
She is one of my very good friends.
I love her so much.
She is one of the best people on this planet.
Until one day the curtain was pulled back.
Three top producers are out at the Ellen show.
It was some of the darkest times of her life, too.
Toxic, phoney, hypocrite, liar.
That's what she is.
Suddenly everything Ellen stood for
seemed to be a lie.
I got to the core, and it wasn't...
it was rotten, and it wasn't good.
She demolished her brand.
How did Ellen DeGeneres go from being
the ambassador of kindness,
to being tagged as the meanest person on TV?
-Siri. -"Yes?"
Spell the word bitch.
"E-L-L-E-N."
[Overlapping voices] Ladies and gentlemen!
You're about to be entertained!
Getting the laugh is the greatest addiction.
They want more of it, they want more of it.
She was getting death threats.
It [beep] with your head! He's out of his skull!
That's what took her down.
This is a crazy story.
♪
When I was watching Lassie as a kid,
they always made it look like Lassie was
the hero of the show.
Lassie was not the hero of the show,
it was the people who were on there with Lassie
who were the geniuses to figure out what the hell
the dog was talking about.
Do you remember this show?
Raised in Metairie, Louisiana,
Ellen DeGeneres' childhood is anything but simple.
I was a normal kid. Loved dolls,
was a tomboy also, but loved dolls.
Loved babies.
Ellen's parents divorced when she was around 13.
She said that she was raised in a pretty "non-communicative"
household, so, it was a surprise to her and her
brother that her parents had been fighting at all.
Ellen had a childhood like most comedians,
it was a little dark.
She moves in with her mother, who's suddenly a single mom
and mourning the end of her marriage.
Her mother battled depression,
and that trickled down to affect Ellen.
I think it was the first time I realized
what kind of power, um...
humour has.
You know, she's crying one minute and then the next
minute she's laughing hysterically, and I thought,
that's, that's amazing to be able to do that for people.
I think that maybe was the, the first seed of
how Ellen got into this world of comedy.
You know, people say there's a lot of
descriptions of what that is.
What, what making people laugh does for a person,
the need for love, or acceptance, approval...
all of those things are, I'm sure they're true,
but it's a high.
As Ellen hits her 20s, she upends her life.
She moves to New Orleans, and she kinda comes into
her own and starts being an adult living by herself.
I was a waitress, I sold clothes,
I was a vacuum cleaner salesman,
and boy did that job suck.
-You know that? -[Laughing]
I mean, I did a lot of things.
I didn't know what I was gonna do.
Have you always wanted to do comedy?
Um... no, I really didn't until I got on stage,
until I was talked into it, because I didn't wanna,
you know, do it.
Soon after moving to New Orleans,
Ellen is actively looking for work in the
city's comedy scene.
I'm driving down the street in the French Quarter,
and there was a sign that said,
'Opening soon Clyde's Comedy Corner'
up on this banister. And I went inside,
and I asked if the owner was there,
and he happened to be there.
I told him I was a comedian, and could I be the MC?
Ellen has become fully committed to a
career as a comedian.
I won't say how old I am, but I'm pretty old,
and I've been singing and playing the guitar
my whole life, and I still do gigs.
Why do I do that?
I don't make any money at it, really.
There's something you get from making people laugh
as a group, anonymous people,
that you can't replace any other way in your life.
And boy, she's had it big time.
♪
By 1982, Ellen is flush with strong material and
a desire for greater exposure.
She submits a tape to 'Showtime' and is chosen as
the network's funniest person in America.
We write a letter to a friend,
we run out of room on the front of the letter,
we write 'over' on the bottom of the letter.
What, are we writing to morons or something?
Like they're going to read it, "And so Kathy and I-"
Ellen DeGeneres.
[Applauding]
She is soon making her name on the comedy circuit.
So like, if you would laugh, then he won't get it.
[Laughing]
To get paid for, for doing things that you made up,
things that you say, "Yeah, this will be funny.
They'll enjoy this." And you get on stage,
and they actually are funny, and they actually do make
people laugh, and you think you have this,
this talent for making other people enjoy themselves.
It's, it's the greatest thing in the world.
As Ellen's professional life starts to grow,
so does her personal life.
She's come out to her friends as gay,
and she has a girlfriend named Kat Perkoff.
♪
Ellen had experienced this terrible tragedy.
Her girlfriend and her had had this terrible fight.
They weren't on speaking terms.
Ellen discovers that Kat has been unfaithful.
Later that evening at a club, Kat tries to
reconcile the situation, but Ellen pretends
she can't hear her over the music.
The two leave the club separately and Ellen
notices a car accident on the way home.
The next morning,
she finds out that the crash involved Kat,
and her girlfriend is now dead.
It left Ellen heartbroken.
Ellen was in mourning.
She had to move out her apartment because she
couldn't afford to stay in apartment that her and
her girlfriend stayed in.
She was staying in this raggedy place,
sitting on a mattress,
and she had this sort of epiphany.
Wouldn't it be great if we could just pick up the phone
and call up God and ask him these things?
Just pick up the phone and call up God and...
"Yeah, hi, God? It's Ellen.
Ellen." -[Laughing]
You got a little cold, God bless ya.
-[Laughing] -Bless yourself.
She creates a routine about speaking with God.
It leads to a call.
One that every comedian in the 1980s strives for.
Would you welcome, Ellen DeGeneres. Ellen?
♪ [Applauding] ♪
The set that she gives on the Johnny Carson Show,
which was one of the most pivotal moments of her
career, was directly inspired by her
grief in that moment.
♪
Yeah, hi God, this is Ellen.
Ellen.
DeGeneres...
DeGeneres.
What's so funny?
[Chuckling] No, I never thought of that,
it does sound like that, doesn't it?
She was super driven, super focused,
and super ambitious.
Ellen's appearance has more than career implications.
It arguably marks a shift in culture.
It's always tougher for a, a woman to do comedy.
I say that and men think I'm being chauvinistic.
I think she had to work harder than any comedian.
Number one because she was a woman.
I think it was hard then because the people who were
making the decisions were all guys in suits.
In the wake of her breakout appearance
on 'The Tonight Show',
Ellen's profile increases exponentially as
America embraces her brand of comedy.
She had, like, a, a...
you know, an every woman kind of a thing.
She had a dry delivery.
She took the, the dull and mundane and
made it hysterical.
[Applauding]
In 1992, Ellen lands an HBO special,
marking a crucial next step in her career.
[Applauding]
Her relentless drive also lands her her first regular
small screen gig as a cast member
on the Fox sitcom 'Open House.'
♪
You know I had dinner with Mr. Green once.
Actually it wasn't dinner,
it was more like a snack, really.
'Open House' only lasts one season,
but Ellen impresses network executives.
They decide to take a chance and
build a sitcom around her.
Her personality really did
allow her to segueway into a sitcom.
Here's a crazy thing.
They were auditioning for the pilot,
and I went in. It was a chemistry read,
or like a, a studio network test, with Ellen,
reading with her in the room.
I don't know if people know how, like,
intimidating it is to go for these big network tests
and they say how much they're gonna pay you and
you start cashing the cheques before you get there.
I was like, "I could buy a house after this."
But I made Ellen laugh,
and she made me laugh,
and we had amazing chemistry and
I got the job an hour later.
The Ellen sitcom was about a single woman
who owned a bookstore.
It really is what we would now call a 'hangout comedy.'
A bunch of friends getting together,
going through sort of funny scenarios.
We worked on a set where everybody was on time,
where we came prepared,
where we were able to improv,
where we were able to try things,
where it was encouraged.
And then once it was, like, set, of course it was set,
and then a second take was like all bets are off.
[Drumming]
I'll always be there when you talk to me.
[Drumming]
I'll always hear you.
Ellen came into her truth and
what she wanted the show to be.
Paige, why would you just naturally assume they're mine?
I mean, could they possibly be Spence's?
Okay, they're mine.
I think that you come to the table, quite literally,
with authenticity and integrity,
and you want everything to be great and funny,
'cause it is a sitcom.
The show is a big success, but behind the scenes
Ellen will reveal another side of herself...
a deep-seated determination for perfection.
I could only imagine what the pressure was on her.
And an ambition so driven that it ignores
the feelings of all others.
Ellen's sitcom is ever more popular,
but with growing success comes increased pressure,
and a determination to push her team.
It was a horrible show to write for because
you had to reinvent the show every week.
First of all, that week we were doing a show where
the character of Audrey was pregnant.
It had been okayed by the network and the studio
and by Ellen.
The script was written, we shoot on Friday,
it's Wednesday night, we're all drinking, we've had wine.
We were walking out on stage, and she turns
to Dava Savel, who is one of the executive producers,
turns to her and says, "By the way,
I don't think I want Audrey to get pregnant this week."
♪
But not after the writers have been drinking and now
know they have to go back and pull an all-nighter
to write another story, that's different from
replacing jokes, or a scene.
When we got back to the office to start the night,
or continue the night, she sent us all wine,
bottles of wine. Now...
That's not thinking.
That's a sweet gesture, but it's a thoughtless gesture in
the sense of that we'd all want to drink that wine,
'cause we were already a little bit high,
but we couldn't.
The next day I understand she was upset because
we didn't thank her.
But Ellen is also pushing herself,
and is struggling with the need to create
something meaningful.
Something authentic.
I was, I was doing well financially,
I was doing well professionally, but I didn't,
I felt like I was not free.
Everything felt like a lie.
I saw my friend and a fellow performer
come to the set with...
pain, and fear, and angst.
And then trying to be funny on top of that
because she really wanted to be
living in her truth.
She invited all the writers to her house for a, a party,
I think it was in the summer during hiatus...
and she stood up in front of everybody and she announced,
"I'm coming out on the show this season."
All I remember was my partner does a U-turn,
goes out to the balcony, and he said,
"We can't do this."
He felt like this was possibly gonna kill us.
The 90s were a very different time from today.
They were not welcoming to gay people in popular culture.
Ellen's sitcom is on summer break,
but rumours have gotten out and there's
public speculation about what's going to happen
next on the show.
When is Ellen gonna come out?
How is Ellen gonna come out?
What is it gonna look like?
Rumour about your character on Ellen, Ellen Morgan,
you know, coming out of the closet.
She was not true to herself on it.
She didn't want to date men on the show anymore.
I mean, is, is it, is it going to happen?
Or is it not going to happen?
And if it does happen, well, that's great, right?
She couldn't walk around holding hands
with her girlfriend.
You're like in hard news right now.
I love that you're-
you know, I don't, I don't know.
-Oh come on, you know. -Yeah, okay.
You gotta know, it's your show.
[Laughing]
She couldn't be...
look like a couple with anybody.
Though the network bows to pressure from Ellen,
the actual episode where her character will come out
remains a closely guarded secret.
Has there ever been anyone you felt you clicked with?
♪
And what was his name?
Susan.
[Laughing & applauding]
The energy of the, of the tapings
started to grow, and you could feel it,
and when was gonna be the time,
and we all knew, obviously, that when it,
when it was gonna happen.
I remember driving up to get to my street and
it was completely blocked off.
Someone was having a party on the block to watch it,
and I thought, "Oh this is, this is sensational.
This is really, really terrific."
The official 'Come Out with Ellen' website
claims that it's received 1,500 requests for
its 'Come Out with Ellen' house party kits.
I'm 35 years old.
I'm so afraid to tell people. I mean, I just...
Susan...
[Amplified] I'm gay.
[Cheering]
When Ellen announced that she was gay into that
loudspeaker, the audience started crying and
applauding for, we had to stop tape for five minutes.
It was, I mean, I'm choking up
just remembering it.
There was screaming, there was laughter,
there was crying, there was emotion.
It was like a vibration that will never, ever be repeated.
There's a line in the show that I say to open it,
to the therapist, "Nobody ever gives you a cake
that says, 'Good for you, you're gay.'"
And they, they, they wheeled out
a huge cake that said, 'Good for you, you're gay.'
It really was a game changer,
and it was monumental.
It was weird, I was getting phone calls,
people from New York saying that the streets were empty,
that places had closed down early.
During commercial breaks or, or after a certain line
you could hear cheering.
I think she rose to,
to this stratosphere that we talk about and,
you know, the cover of 'Time Magazine'
and, 'Yep, I'm Gay,' was a big deal for her.
Not many people had done that.
When Ellen came out on her show,
it was this bold and brash decision.
It was a powerful decision. It was a calculated decision.
It was time for her.
I was...
filled with joy.
But as the celebration around Ellen's coming out
begins to recede,
a backlash starts to foment.
I think it was really post the show,
post the actual coming out show,
where it became the darkest.
And I remember going to her home to,
to huddle down with her,
to hunker down with her, and it was very scary.
Some anti-Ellen protestors rallied outside ABC today.
Some people are coming out against the coming out hoopla.
It turns me off. I don't think it's proper.
I don't want my children or grandchildren exposed to it.
I'm not an arch conservative,
I'm a liberal, but there's no place for it.
It's out of hand.
All of the, the, the ripple effect that it had,
the industry just went nuts.
You can be as gay as you want,
but if you upset the advertisers then
we've got a problem, Ellen.
And the industry just wasn't ready.
It wasn't cool to be gay at that time.
Many evangelical groups ran a campaign against it.
They all came after Ellen.
She's the first leading character in a leading sitcom
in primetime to come out as a,
as a homosexual on television.
It is a precedent setter because if in fact this gets
by the board, and the corporate America
continues to pay the bill for that kind of garbage,
it won't be long before God knows what.
I remember we all were told to exit the stage before
every taping so they could bring the dogs through to
make sure there weren't bombs on the set.
Yeah, there was a bomb threat. I don't-
I didn't read the hate mail, so I don't know.
But I know they didn't show it to Ellen.
So it was pretty ugly.
And then we would go on and do our show and
make funny and be like a carnival ride.
Their television program promotes homosexuality.
Do you know what they say?
"Hey, if you don't like it, turn it off."
Okay, we will.
What starts out as attacks from the religious right,
soon turns into criticism from within the industry.
How gay was the show?
-How gay was the show? -Yeah.
I could have, if it wasn't a struggle every single week
to get that on the air, it,
it would've probably been more.
Even if it meant risking the comfort level
of the audience?
Yeah.
We were watching Ellen find a relationship,
which people didn't necessarily want to see.
It started off great.
We had big ratings, it's a giant hit.
And then...
it fell apart.
And I don't think it had anything to do with
the subject matter falling apart.
It had to do with it got boring,
the same show every week.
My feeling was there's gonna be a big elephant
in the room in every episode.
It's so gay it's excluding a large part of our society.
Ouch.
I think the most important thing was that
it just stopped being funny.
By coming out she was essentially telling
the world who she was.
She was being more honest, she was being herself.
And what the world said was, "We're not sure about that."
Well, if you were to have her sitting here,
it was some of the darkest times of her life too.
Slowly the hype and the hatred begin to fade,
but so do the ratings for the 'Ellen' show.
ABC decides to cancel the series.
Well, I believe we tried to give her more
personal support, but again, I think her own passion
got in the way of that a bit.
She had a great opportunity and she knew it.
To some extent she took advantage of it,
to some extent she tried to take advantage of it
too much, and the result was failure.
Ellen DeGeneres will leave ABC.
Her show canceled, her feelings bruised,
and she leaves behind a fierce debate
about what happened.
Did she torpedo her own show by pushing a gay agenda?
-And we cut! Woo! -[Applauding]
Is everybody here right now?
'Cause I'd like to say something.
♪
You, you've dealt with probably stuff that you
don't deserve to deal with because...
because of my views and because of what
I've decided to do with my life.
She thought she would never work again,
that she was going to be canceled.
It's been a wonderful, wonderful run.
[Applauding]
And thank you. Just, just thank you
so much for being such good people.
Her sitcom character came out of the closet straight into
controversy and eventually cancellation.
After that, the phone didn't ring much for Ellen.
I think we all were lost at what to do next.
We had all, you know,
brought history making television to fruition.
It's hard to catch lightning in a bottle twice.
Until this year when she made a splashy comeback as the
voice of 'Dory' in the year's biggest movie, 'Finding Nemo.'
Forget things almost instantly.
It runs in my family.
Well, I mean, at least I think it does.
Um... hmm...
Where are they?
In the early 2000s, Ellen fights her way back.
You know, you know what I want to say-
and I really do mean this- I,
I think it's important for us to be here because
they can't take away our creativity,
our striving for excellence, our joy...
only network executives can do that.
High profile gigs such as hosting the Emmys and a
comeback HBO stand-up special return Ellen to
her place as a bankable big star.
From the ashes the phoenix rises.
Now, the reality is
you made money for so long
you weren't stupid enough not to put some away.
You'll figure it out, because you're a money maker.
You're a money maker.
We still were hanging out quite a bit,
and she said she was gonna do a, a pilot for a talk show,
and one of her guests was gonna be Tom Hanks.
And I was like, "Well, that's gonna go."
This is our very, very first show,
and you are my very first audience.
[Cheering]
In 2003, Ellen DeGeneres debuts
her brand new talk show.
When Ellen got her daytime talk show,
it was still the 'Jerry Springer' era.
So, most daytime talk shows were trashy.
You know, people throwing chairs,
and people's pop surprise, "I'm your daddy" and,
"I've got a surprise for you." You know, at the time,
Ellen was just a breath of fresh air.
So, but what do you do? Do you work out?
-What do you do? -Well, it ain't cheap.
-Yeah? -[Laughing]
So, her talk show was a lot classier and
a lot more fun than the competition.
♪ [Clapping] ♪
Ellen's show was supposed to be light and airy and...
a good time and dancing and fun,
and this kind of positive space.
She is somebody that you do want to like,
sit down and chat with, and this was gonna be
an incredible success for her.
I think everybody kind of knew it right away.
At the heart of the show was Ellen's brand of comedy,
which is always happy-go-lucky, goofy,
sort of naive, but there's always a slight edge there.
The last person I kissed was- blank.
8-year-old kid in the audience last night.
-That is gross. -[Laughing]
It made her that person that you want to be around.
I am terrified of porcelain dolls.
[Laughing] Stop! Stop, man!
The show was an immediate hit and it,
pretty soon was bringing more viewers than Oprah,
which is an incredible achievement.
Ellen basks in her newfound superstardom,
using her show as a platform to push
a distinctly personal agenda.
Today, I don't know if you know this,
but it's 'World Kindness Day.'
[Applauding]
Since I preach kindness every day,
this is a big one for me.
This is like my Super Bowl or...
or my World Series or my-
I don't know any other sports. That's all.
[Laughing]
All along, Ellen makes kindness
a big part of the show's appeal.
She says, "Be kind to one another,"
at the end of every episode.
She makes charity a part of the spectacle.
It's not just funny, it's that you feel like
you're watching someone who's using their platform
to do good.
Her motto was, "Be kind."
She was the friend next door,
and you liked her.
So, to me, it was real.
Ladies and gentlemen, winning tonight for
favourite daytime TV host,
favourite comedic collaboration,
favourite animated movie voice...
Ellen sells this idea of kindness with a capital K.
It becomes a lifestyle brand, and not just
like a moral value.
She is one of the best people on this planet and
no one is more deserving,
the one and only, Ellen DeGeneres.
For over a decade, Ellen's daytime talk show
is a juggernaut, making her the most beloved and
highest paid talk show host in television history.
But as the show enters its 18th year,
culture shifts.
Scrutiny becomes currency.
And for the first time, rumblings about
Ellen DeGeneres being not what she seems
float to the surface.
The show did so many good things.
Going on TV every day and telling people
to be kind to one another...
there's so much goodness and beauty within that.
But it's like an apple, right?
The apple is really, really good until you get to a core
and then it's a different, it's a different thing.
I got to the core, and it wasn't...
it was rotten, and it wasn't good.
In 2012, Ellen DeGeneres is one of the most powerful
people in the industry, capable of making or
breaking anyone she takes an interest in.
♪ WE ARE THE CROWD WE'RE C-COMING OUT, ♪
♪ GOT MY FLASH ON IT'S TRUE ♪
♪ NEED THAT PICTURE OF YOU ♪
♪ IT'S SO MAGICAL. ♪
My name is Greyson Chance.
I'm an artist and a singer-songwriter.
She wasn't just one of the biggest champions,
she was my champion.
It was yesterday I saw your video,
and you were sitting in math class, I believe, right?
I finally excused myself from class and I called,
and she said, "The Ellen producers just called."
And I just remember multiple times her saying,
"I wanna be in this for a long time with you.
Your mentor, your guide through the industry.
We're going to do this together."
She looked at my mom that day
and she said, "You will never have to work
a day in your life ever again."
You are... just be prepared.
Your minds will be blown.
She told my mom and I that for a very,
very long time in her career, she had always
wanted to do something in music.
And at this point in her career,
the way that she saw that dream sort moving forward
was she wanted to start an imprint
under a major record label.
She had gotten an advance copy of the
Justin Bieber documentary, at the time.
It was like a month before it released,
she'd gotten a copy of it,
and she really wanted me to see it.
So this DVD gets to us.
I remember kind of being a little fussy about it,
I don't want to watch it,
but I remember talking to my mom
and my mom saying, "You know what?
We have like two or three more shows,
and we're gonna be back in LA in a few days.
You'll be off.
Why don't we watch it together"?
And I was like, "Okay, cool."
A few days pass, we arrive in LA.
I was at lunch with my mom,
and she had received a phone call
directly from Ellen, and I remember
my mom took a step outside out onto the street,
and I just remember as a kid watching her
kind of pace back and forth,
and I remember her trying to catch a word in and
she couldn't, on the phone.
And I was just looking, and I was like,
"What's going on"?
She came into the restaurant, my mom said,
"She wants to talk to you."
And the message that was expressed to me
was how disappointed she was that I had not
watched the documentary,
and she spent a lot of time telling me that,
"I took time to personally get this,
and you were not able to watch it."
And that's when I saw a completely different
side of her.
And in years later, you know, when I got a little older,
my mom and I had rehashed that story a bit more,
and my mom had told me that she had kinda come at her
very, very hard and said things along the lines of,
you know, "How are you raising him?
What type of mother are you"?
And these things that were pretty, pretty awful.
And all of a sudden it became a little more like I kinda
had to walk on eggshells, and I really had to behave,
because if I didn't, she was gonna get nasty with my mom
or she was gonna get nasty with me.
And the second that, all of a sudden I wasn't going to
get her to the success that she wanted,
and to the imprint, she not only cast me aside,
she casted aside the entire project.
And any interaction with her from that day on was
completely surface level and I was just
another guest on the show.
I think that I was a nice person to begin with
and I hope I've gotten nicer.
Is Ellen's culture of kindness just for cameras?
In 2020, the same year as the pandemic,
the same year that we're all stuck at home watching
as much TV as possible,
Ellen's facade starts to crumble.
These reports come out that people on her show
allegedly aren't being treated well and are
unhappy with the environment.
But Ellen is now facing a major PR problem following
a Buzzfeed article that portrays the 'Queen of Nice'
as the 'Queen of Mean'.
A lot of the backlash built up around this Twitter thread
that the comedian Kevin Porter posted,
where he asked people for horror stories
of interacting with Ellen.
He tweeted that she is notoriously one of the
meanest people alive, and asked for others to
share their stories about her being mean.
-Siri. -"Yes?"
Spell the word bitch.
"E-L-L-E-N."
The staff that worked on the Ellen show,
they couldn't have eye contact with her,
there were allegations that Ellen and her staff
yelled at people, yelled at people on their team.
Well, let me tell you something.
I did Ellen DeGeneres' show a couple of times,
and the last time I did it, it was a long time ago,
it was probably 10 years ago,
I took note of how scared her staff was.
Brad Garrett of 'Everybody Loves Raymond' fame
and Leah Thompson from 'Back to the Future'
have posted Tweets saying that she's not nice.
So, it's a pretty tough moment
to be Ellen right now.
With her reputation suddenly in question,
Ellen writes up an apology to her staff in
an attempt to mitigate the damage.
Ellen came off as somewhat defensive.
It was during the summer, so I didn't
have any platform to respond to it.
She was sort of implying that there was some kind of,
you know, behind the scenes conspiracy to take her down.
I mean, I really didn't understand it.
I still don't understand it.
Yeah, I thought, I thought
something was going on that, that...
because it was too orchestrated,
it was too coordinated.
I don't think they felt she was sincere.
I don't think they believed it.
With her career under siege,
more bad news is on the doorstep for Ellen.
The culture at Ellen's talk show has been under
a harsh spotlight for the past few weeks.
And just as Ellen vows to make changes,
these new allegations are painting an even more
disturbing picture behind the scenes.
When I first heard the allegations against Ellen,
I was like, "What? What"?
I thought, my first reaction was, it was unfair.
But then it kept coming out, and it was when
Warner Brothers did a,
did an inside investigation.
As Ellen struggles to contain a flurry of allegations that
she allowed a toxic work environment,
the situation escalates.
Staffers at 'Ellen' alleged a culture of racism,
fear, and intimidation at the show.
They asked to go on leave for mental health,
and when they came back they found out that
their job had been terminated.
If you went against her,
you might be boycotted in this industry.
You might have a hard time.
One Black staffer said that she underwent a
number of racist micro-aggressions.
This morning three top producers are out
at the 'Ellen' show.
Warner Brothers confirming to NBC news that
executive producers, Ed Galvin, Kevin Leman,
and co-executive producer, Jonathan Norman,
have all parted ways with the
Emmy award-winning daytime series.
"I am 100% categorically denying these allegations.
I have never had a single complaint of any
misconduct against me in my career."
The people who were actually being accused of
the harassment and, and the misconduct
were producers on the show, not Ellen herself,
which we should be very clear about.
But when you put all of those together,
what you get is the poisoning of one of the
best reputations in Hollywood.
Now the question is, was she in the dark?
Or did she turn a blind eye?
Despite a Warner Brothers investigation that
forces out three of her producers,
the accusations levelled against Ellen
continue to paint an increasingly dire portrait.
Toxic, phoney, hypocrite, liar.
That's what she is.
Hannah Muscat was with Ellen from the beginning,
in 2003, when the talk show was launched.
We were told from the very beginning,
"Don't talk to Ellen. Don't do this.
You can't, you know, go into her office."
It was very nerve wracking, very stressful.
We all walked on eggshells all the time.
Muscat says, despite Ellen's 'Queen of Nice' reputation,
it became clear early on that it would not be
a pleasant place to work.
You are the exec producer,
or you hired the exec producer.
Your name is on the door.
You are responsible for what goes on.
You are responsible for how your staff is acting.
It had built up, which means it had
been going on for a long time and people
didn't say anything, until finally, it was
the straw that broke the camel's back.
When you look at comedians, Hollywood stars in general,
you always kinda wonder the context of,
what's their childhood?
What's their journey been like?
And for Ellen, it really feels like
she was super driven, super focused,
and super ambitious, and it kinda,
probably was fuelled by some of the awful things
that happened to her as she was a child.
After Ellen's mom and dad divorce,
Ellen's mom later got married.
She has said that
her stepfather began sexually abusing her
when her mother got cancer.
My mother had just had a mastectomy,
she had breast cancer...
and he told me that he thought he felt another lump
in her other breast and he needed to feel mine.
And then it escalated to more and more,
trying to do more.
And then, she was out of town and one night tried to
break the door down when I was sleeping,
and I had to kick a window out and go sleep in a
hospital overnight and just stay on the floor.
And I couldn't, it's a small town,
so I couldn't tell people why I was there.
Ellen told her mom what her stepdad had done,
and Ellen's mom wouldn't believe her.
So, she did confront him about the story?
Yeah, but he said I was lying
and then she stayed with him.
So that, that made me really angry.
That really is like the ultimate form of betrayal,
realizing that you don't have your mom's support and
you're not safe at home.
To escape the abuse,
Ellen moves in with her father,
but the hope that everything will be
better there is soon shattered.
Her father, you know, is remarried and
has his own children, his own family...
and so, Ellen comes to a point where she wants
to tell her dad that she's gay.
The woman who he's married to
had two daughters,
and they asked me to
move out of the house after that.
And she's being told that she's dangerous in some ways,
that she can't be around children
or a traditional family life.
So, that obviously sends a message.
That was bad...
because they loved me, and I loved them,
and they didn't want me in the house.
I mean, the story of what happened to Ellen
when she came out to her biological father is
familiar to a lot of queer kids.
It's maybe a more extreme version than some people
experience, where, you know, a lot of people live in homes
that, where they feel disapproval.
In this case, she was literally not approved and
asked to move out.
When you face rejection and trauma growing up,
the pressure isn't necessarily about
what other people are telling you to do.
The pressure is about internally how you prove to
other people that you are worthy.
So, if I internally have a storm inside of me,
I'm gonna create that on the outside of me.
So, I see the laser focus on the goal being
very chaotic to the people around her.
And I think that edge is informed by life.
I think that edge is informed by
having had to keep a big part of
who she was hidden for so long.
Because I didn't have the privilege of being protected,
so nobody around me gets that privilege either.
Ellen would always tell stories about fighting
bullies in childhood, or standing up for the innocent.
And, you know, in the end,
the thing that takes her down is
this impression that she actually is a bully herself,
and there's something really sad and tragic about that.
There was something almost mythical about the way that
her reputation for kindness was getting totally torn down
in spectacular fashion in front of everybody.
I would argue that
she demolished her brand,
almost entirely.
After more than 3000 episodes and
2,400 celebrity interviews,
that's a wrap for the Ellen DeGeneres show.
The daytime TV star telling the Hollywood Reporter,
"As great as the show is, and as fun as it is,
it's just not a challenge anymore."
So it was crazy, and it was quick.
It, it, it happened really fast, and...
and we woke up one day and it was over.
Unable to mollify her detractors and
fully clear her reputation,
Ellen DeGeneres chooses to end
her talk show after 19 seasons.
This is my last season, in case you didn't know that,
and if you didn't know, surprise!
-It's my last season. -[Laughing]
I went to Ellen's show to sit in the audience to go,
I wanted to dance with her and meet Ellen and
hug her and tell her,
"Welcome to the talk show arena!
I'm so proud of you! You told those folks!"
We are all standing there waiting for
our girl Ellen to come out.
She comes out, she goes up on stage,
and then she does the opening and we're just so excited.
The big blue eyes, and she's funny,
and we're laughing and giving it, giving it, giving it.
And then the commercial break comes,
and we're all expecting like,
"Come on up here, talk to us, girl"!
And I'm, I'm like, "Hey, girl, hey"!
You know, I'm like, "Hey..."
♪
Ellen never turned to the audience.
Never said like, "Y'all, I'm so glad you're here."
Ellen sat there as if we weren't even there.
I just found it so odd because there was
so much love there for her.
How could you just not turn and say,
"I love you" back?
You know, what I wanted to do when I started out is,
is make people happy, and make people laugh.
But then, this has turned into something so much
better for me that I get to change people's lives.
I think it's wholly unfair.
Ellen DeGeneres was the first person who called me back
in the pandemic when I was making a video for
raising money for the Navajo Nation because
they didn't have ventilators.
And Ellen was the first person to call me back,
and say, "What do you need"?
Well, I love you, and I...
so appreciate you and what you have
given to the world over the last 19 years.
The contribution is, it's endless.
With her talk show ending prematurely,
her fan base divided and revelations still coming,
Ellen DeGeneres' legacy becomes murky.
I think the saddest thing about this whole Ellen
revelation is that she exploded from within,
imploded from within, that the staff imploded.
That's the structure of your show.
And that the audience didn't come to her rescue,
those are the sad things.
To have a tainted legacy because of
the way you treated people.
There are people out there who,
when a prominent gay woman is accused to be harsh,
mean, insensitive, inhuman...
all their stereotypes are confirmed.
And so, I would bet that part of that sentiment,
wanting her to fit the stereotype,
has driven some of the backlash.
She looked at the news, she looked at TikTok,
she looked at all these places and said,
"How do I make this a part of the show,
as opposed to only bringing on celebrities
who are going to promote a thing?"
She opened the door and then people ran through.
There's nothing that Ellen could do that would erase her
importance in the history of Queer television.
-[Applauding] -Thank you, thank you.
I so, I so appreciate the support, and it's,
it's been really hard to convince people that I can,
you know, do a daytime show and be this person that
I know that I am and that I've always tried to be.
And this is a huge thing for me and I,
I'm so happy doing it and I hope...
[Cheering & applauding]
My friend Ellen DeGeneres has done a tremendous
amount of good for the world.
For the LGBTQ plus community,
for moms at home that needed a friend
and needed a laugh or a good cry during their day.
[Applauding]
When we started the show,
I couldn't say 'gay' on the show.
I was not allowed to say 'gay'.
I said it at home, a lot. I, you know,
"What are we having for our gay breakfast"? Or...
[Laughing]
"Pass the gay salt."
"Has anyone seen the gay remote"?
Things like that. But...
we couldn't say 'gay.' I couldn't say 'we'
because that implied that I was with someone.
Sure couldn't say 'wife' and that's because
it wasn't legal for gay people to get married,
and now I say 'wife' all the time.
[Applauding]
I think that you can catch people on a bad day,
and I think you're allowed to have a bad day.
I think that if you spend your life being kind,
and being good, I think that you are
allowed to have a really shitty day.
And maybe she had those. You know?
I know I have. It's unfair to,
to make a judgment about someone without knowing
all the parts of the story.