What happened to Ellen DeGeneres and her career is the stuff of legend.
The journey from beloved comedian to blacklisted, gay outcast, television’s most beloved host to total disappointment has been well documented by all but Ellen.
But that’s all about to change as fans around the world will finally get to see Ellen’s last stand-up special on Netflix this month.
And no topic is off limits.
What happened to Ellen and her talk show?
In 2020, Ellen DeGeneres found herself at the center of a surprising scandal.
After nearly 20 years on the air with her talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show , the comedian has stepped away from the spotlight for good.
Part of the decision was his own, and part of it was not his own.
Allen was accused of creating a hostile workplace in which employees were mistreated, overworked, and pitted against one another in a highly competitive environment.
Shortly after the allegations became public, Ellen’s talk show ended after 19 years.
He fiercely defended himself and those around him from the accusations, but the global audience that once loved dancing with him every morning was still willing to assume the worst about him.
And so, after Ellen’s show ended in May 2022, she found herself out of work — and canceled the show.
Why Ellen was cancelled: the allegations
The Queen of Nice was exposed as the Queen of Mean after a number of editorials were published detailing the behind-the-scenes antics of Ellen and her producers.
“This ‘be kind’ nonsense only happens when the cameras are on. It’s all a pretense,” one former employee told BuzzFeed News.
The allegations ranged from racial discrimination to being fired without reason for taking sick leave to general day-to-day toxicity, including instructions not to speak to Ellen directly.
To be fair, most of the most heinous allegations were made against her production team, as Ellen had very little connection to the entire production team that worked on her show.
In fact, top producers began slamming Ellen’s side almost immediately.
“We are truly saddened and sorry to hear that even one person in our production family has had a negative experience,” Ed Glavin, Mary Connelly and Andy Lassner said in a statement.
“This is not who we are nor who we strive to be, nor is it the mission that Ellen set for us.”
But ultimately, Ellen was the face of the show, and while she couldn’t be held responsible for circumstances she knew nothing about, she was also criticized for distancing herself from the matter.
And, apparently, for behaving coldly and unfriendly towards the team that works for him.
Ellen DeGeneres tells audience she was ‘thrown out of show business’
After hosting her final episode, the troubled comedian went silent for a while. At first, it seemed like she was taking a well-deserved vacation. Or at least, waiting to return to the spotlight once the heat waned.
But then she returned to her roots with a new standup tour and the truth came out.
The tour kicked off with a show in West Hollywood, and as expected, Ellen made some candid comments about the scandal that ended her TV career (at least for now).
“What else can I tell you? Oh yeah, I got kicked out of show business,” DeGeneres told a packed crowd during the show.
The joke was taken for the trailer of the Netflix comedy special, which is set to air on September 24.
In it, Ellen talked about the beginning of her career and how she thought it would progress.
“I thought, if I can make people happy, they’ll like me. And if they like me, I’ll feel good about myself… and all I can say about that is thank God for money!”
Ellen talks about show cancellations during her tour
“There are no mean people in show business,” he said sarcastically.
From there, Ellen joked about the difference between her public image and how her former employees describe her.
As you may recall, Ellen would urge viewers to “be kind to one another” at the end of her show — words of wisdom she reportedly failed to follow in her interactions with her staff.
“That ‘kind’ girl wasn’t kind,” he joked on stage this week.
The comedian further added, “I became a one-dimensional character who would give everything and dance. Do you know how difficult it is to dance?”
“Would a mean person dance on the stairs? If I ended my show saying, ‘Go fuck yourself,’ people would be pleasantly surprised.”
Ellen apologizes during stand-up special
According to viewers of her show, Ellen later addressed the scandal in a more serious way, explaining to viewers that she was a boss who, despite being the face of the show, “didn’t know how to be a boss.”
“I didn’t go to business school. I went to Charlie’s Chuckle Hut,” she joked.
“The show was called Ellen and everybody was wearing T-shirts that said ‘Ellen’ and there were some buildings on the grounds of Warner Bros that said ‘Ellen’, but I didn’t know if that meant I was supposed to be in charge of it.”
Is this the apology some of Ellen’s former staffers were hoping for? Maybe.
But only time – and reviews of his stand-up – will tell if he’ll be welcomed with open arms in Hollywood.