Here’s Why Everyone Hates Ellen DeGeneres!

I don’t think that I’m that good that I could come out here every day for 17 years and fool you.

This is me and my intention is to always be the best person I can be.

And if I’ve ever let someone down, if I’ve ever hurt their feelings, I am so sorry for that.

Ellen Degenerous built her career on two simple words.

Be kind.

For nearly two decades, she danced into America’s living rooms every afternoon.

She gave away cars, hugged celebrities, and made millions of people smile.

But in 2020, everything changed.

Former employees started talking.

They shared stories about fear, harassment, and a workplace ruled by terror.

The woman who preached kindness allegedly created a culture where staff were afraid to even look at her.

By 2022, her empire was gone.

What really happened behind those studio doors? The truth is darker than anyone imagined.

Ellen DeGeneres was born on January 26th, 1958 in Miter, Louisiana.

Her father, Elliot, worked as an insurance salesman and her mother, Betty, sold real estate.

But their house didn’t feel like a normal home.

It was ruled by strict Christian Science beliefs.

Her father was the first reader at church, a role like a preacher, and he followed the religion’s teachings with no room for discussion.

There was no drinking, no smoking, no swearing, no emotion, no medicine.

Even something like aspirin was forbidden.

Ellen never had a doctor’s visit until she was 13.

They believed prayer could fix everything.

If you were sick, you just hadn’t prayed hard enough.

She was raised in a place where you had to act like everything was fine, even when it wasn’t.

And feelings were something you weren’t allowed to have.

Then came the year 1973.

Her parents decided to separate, and in 1974, they divorced.

Ellen was only 15.

Because of how closed off their family was emotionally, she never saw it coming.

She didn’t even know they had problems.

She once said that she never knew how anybody in her house really felt.

Christian Science had already stripped away her chance to have normal relationships, and the divorce broke everything apart for good.

Her mother, Betty, took Ellen and moved to Atlanta, Texas.

Her older brother, Vance, stayed behind with their dad in Louisiana.

The family split into pieces.

Ellen, just a teenager, had to become the adult in the house.

Her mom was deeply shaken, and Ellen found herself trying to take care of her.

As a kid, Ellen had dreams.

She loved animals and wanted to become a vet.

But those dreams clashed with her religion.

Being a vet meant believing in science and medicine, and that wasn’t allowed in her world.

She had questions about how bodies worked, but those weren’t allowed either.

Her mind wanted to explore, but her surroundings forced her to stay quiet and obedient.

She noticed the cracks in what the adults said and what she saw with her own eyes.

But when you’re a child and you see the world doesn’t make sense, you just keep your thoughts to yourself.

That pressure built up inside her for years.

Then her mother remarried in 1976.

Betty married a man named Roy Grusenorf and the family settled in Atlanta, Texas.

Ellen had to start over in a new school in a new town with a new stepfather.

Around that same time, Betty was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She had to get a mastectomy, which meant surgery and medical care, the exact thing their religion said was wrong.

But now they had no choice.

It was a moment that shattered their faith.

The surgery was never talked about.

Ellen, only 16, helped her mother recover in silence.

She had to do exercises with her and care for her wounds.

It brought them closer, but also forced Ellen to grow up even more.

She wasn’t just a daughter anymore.

She was a nurse, a caretaker, and still just a teenager trying to survive school and a broken home.

That’s when things got even worse.

Ellen’s stepfather, Roy, began abusing her.

She was only 15 when it started.

He told her he needed to check her breasts for lumps, pretending it was related to her mom’s cancer.

He used her innocence and fear against her.

One night he tried to break into her room.

She was so scared she kicked out a window and ran away.

Sleeping in a hospital that night just to feel safe.

But she kept quiet.

She didn’t understand enough about bodies or abuse to even describe what was happening.

She blamed herself for being too scared to stop it.

It wasn’t until years later in 2005 and again in 2019 that she finally shared this publicly to help others who had gone through the same thing.

After high school, things didn’t get easier.

She graduated from Atlanta High in 1976, but dropped out of the University of New Orleans after just one semester.

She was supposed to study communication.

Instead, she had to survive.

Her parents’ divorce had left her without financial support.

So, she took whatever jobs she could find.

She worked at a law office with her cousin Laura, then at JC Penny, then as a waitress at TGI Fridays, then she painted houses, bartending, and worked as a hostess.

She was doing all of this just to stay afloat.

The irony wasn’t lost on her.

Years later, she’d become worth over $500 million.

And back then, she was just a broke teen scraping by.

Her mother’s cancer had already shaken their faith to its core.

But what made it even worse was the silence.

No one talked about the mastctomy.

No one talked about feelings.

Ellen was left taking care of everything while pretending nothing was wrong.

She was expected to follow religious rules that no longer made sense.

That’s when she gave up on the religion for good.

She became agnostic, rejecting the ideas that had controlled her since birth.

Her brother Vance was on a different path.

Born in 1954, he was four years older than Ellen and had served in the Marine Corps.

After that, he went into music and became a key part of New Orleans underground scene in the late 1970s.

He played bass for a band called The Cold, which later got inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

He even hosted a radio show.

While Ellen was working dead-end jobs and dealing with abuse, Vance was creating.

Their paths were different, but their bond stayed strong.

They supported each other, even while living in different states.

Ellen once dreamed of working in law, but the abuse she suffered and the betrayal from her mother destroyed that.

When she finally told her mother about Royy’s abuse, Betty didn’t believe her.

She stayed married to Roy for another 18 years until he died in 1997.

That rejection broke something in Ellen.

During the same time, she was working in a law firm surrounded by people who were supposed to protect others.

But no one had protected her.

At 22, tragedy struck again.

Ellen had fallen in love with a woman named Cat Perkoff.

They had broken up temporarily, and Ellen had moved out.

One night in 1980, she saw a terrible car crash.

She didn’t know it then, but Cat was in that car.

She died at just 23.

The next morning, Ellen found out and was crushed.

She couldn’t afford their place anymore and ended up sleeping on a mattress in a flea-filled basement.

In her lowest moment, she asked herself why her girlfriend had died while fleas thrived.

That thought turned into her first comedy bit, the phone call to God routine.

It was dark, painful, and funny.

That routine launched her stand-up career.

She started at Clyde’s Comedy Club in New Orleans in 1981, walking in and claiming she was a comedian.

No experience, just raw pain turned into humor.

In 1982, she entered a national competition run by Showtime called Funniest Person in America.

She won.

That win changed everything.

She went from working jobs for tips to getting noticed nationwide.

She toured, got invited to HBO, and suddenly she was no longer just surviving.

She was on her way.

Later that year, she moved to San Francisco to join the comedy circuit.

She performed at clubs like Punchline and Cobbs, doing multiple sets a night, sometimes unpaid.

Her style was clean and observant, which clashed with the edgier comedians at the time.

But she kept going, sharpening her timing and voice in front of tough crowds.

She was learning what made people laugh and what made them think.

Then came the moment that changed her life.

In November 1986, she was invited to perform on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

That day, she forgot her parking brake and had to chase her car down Melrose Avenue.

On stage, she performed her phone call to God routine, born from the death of her first love.

Carson loved it.

He broke tradition and invited her to sit on the couch, a gesture he’d never extended to a female comedian on her first appearance.

That night made her a star.

Ellen DeGeneres didn’t come out of nowhere.

Back in 1989, she first showed up on people’s TVs as a weird, overly eager secretary named Margot Van Meter.

It was on a show called Open House, which aired on Fox starting August 27th.

It ran for just 24 episodes, ending May 6th, 1990.

Ellen wasn’t the lead.

She was the comic relief in a real estate office full of odd personalities.

Nobody knew it then, but this was the first real step that would push her from standup stages into scripted television.

That one season show came and went, but she stuck in people’s minds.

Then came Lorie Hill in 1992.

Ellen played a nurse named Nancy McIntyre.

Only five episodes aired before ABC pulled the plug on October 28th.

It was a flop.

But even in those few minutes of screen time, one TV critic said Ellen was the only reason to watch.

The showrunners agreed.

Even though their show failed, they remembered her.

And when they made a new show later, they wrote a role just for her.

That new show came in 1994.

It was called These Friends of Mine at first, but it got renamed Ellen in 1995 to avoid confusion with friends, which had exploded that year.

Ellen played a nervous bookstore owner named Ellen Morgan.

It ran for 109 episodes, ending in 1998.

But what changed everything was episode 22 of season 4.

It aired April 30th, 1997.

Ellen’s character came out as gay on national television.

Right before that, Ellen herself had come out in real life, too.

She was on the cover of Time magazine on April 14th with three words: “Yep, I’m gay.

” That episode pulled in 42 million viewers.

It was ABC’s most watched show that year.

But right after it aired, hate mail flooded her studio.

Thousands of letters and something even worse, a bomb threat.

Someone had called it in, but they messed up the timing.

The cast had already wrapped filming.

Ellen later said she never felt more afraid.

ABC got cold feet.

They started putting warning labels on her episodes, parental advisories, just for showing someone in a gay relationship.

Then things fell apart.

Ratings dropped hard.

The show ranked 30th in 1997, but by 1998, it was in 45th place.

Ellen lost a third of her audience.

ABC filmed three more episodes.

They refused to air two of them.

One had a same-sex kiss.

ABC said it was too much.

Conservative groups cheered, even glad the LGBTQ media group said the show had gotten too serious.

Ellen’s career hit a wall.

In May 1998, ABC canled the show.

Two full episodes were locked in the vault.

No goodbye, no closure, just silence.

And then came the Anne Hche era.

They dated publicly from 1997 to 2000.

The world wasn’t ready.

The moment they showed up together at the Volcano movie premiere, everything changed.

Anne was reportedly told she’d be fired.

Ellen was blacklisted, too.

A Fox executive allegedly said Anne wouldn’t be cast in a Harrison Ford movie if she stayed with Ellen.

At that same premiere, security tapped them on the shoulder and told them they weren’t allowed to be photographed together.

The message was clear.

Go away.

When they finally broke up in 2000, the story turned even darker.

One day later, Anne was found in a stranger’s home in Fresno, confused, calling herself Celestia and talking about a spaceship.

She later admitted she had taken ecstasy and was dealing with deep childhood trauma.

It was one of the most talked about Hollywood breakups of the decade.

In 2001, Ellen tried to bounce back with a new CBS show called The Ellen Show.

It was her second shot at a sitcom.

She played a tech exec who returns to her hometown.

It flopped hard.

Only 13 episodes aired.

Ratings collapsed within weeks.

It was pulled from the schedule by January 2002.

That marked Ellen’s second big TV failure in just 4 years.

But then came the biggest pivot of her life.

On September 8th, 2003, the Ellen Degenerous show premiered.

It didn’t start fancy.

It was filmed in NBC’s small Studio 11 in Burbank.

Nobody expected much, but Ellen danced.

She gave away gifts.

She made celebrities feel safe.

And somehow it worked.

The show won 15 daytime Emmys in its first three seasons.

That had never happened before.

By 2005, she had 2.

5 million people watching her every single day.

Her 12 days of giveaways gave out over $3,000 in gifts per audience member across 12 episodes.

By 2008, the show had to move into a bigger space.

Warner Brothers renamed it the Ellen Stage in 2015.

The show lasted 19 seasons.

That’s 3, 339 episodes.

She got 171 Emmy nominations.

She won 63.

She even changed daytime TV by going viral before anyone else did.

Her clips spread on YouTube and Facebook before other shows even knew how to upload videos.

Guests cried, kids danced, celebrities broke news.

At her peak, Ellen had over 4.2 million viewers daily.

Her giveaways, games, and danceoffs made her unstoppable.

Then came Finding Nemo.

The movie hit theaters on May 30th, 2003, but Ellen had started recording her voice for Dory way back in 1998.

The director, Andrew Stanton, had written the role specifically with her in mind.

The movie made 941637 $60 globally, just under a billion.

It cost $94 million to make.

Ellen’s voice acting became iconic.

Her whale speaking bit became a classic moment, and she never stopped asking for a sequel.

It finally came in 2016.

In 2008, Ellen married Porsche D.Rossy.

They planned a commitment ceremony at first, but when California legalized same-sex marriage that summer, Ellen proposed.

They got married on August 16th in their Beverly Hills home.

Only 19 guests, custom Zach Posen dresses.

Her mother, Betty, and Porsche’s mother, Margaret, were there.

Porsche legally changed her name in 2010 to Porsche Lee James Degenerous, though she still used her stage name.

By 2014, Ellen’s power peaked.

On March 2nd, she hosted the Oscars.

That’s when she snapped the most viral selfie in history.

Jennifer Lawrence, Meryill Streep, Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie.

The tweet got over 3.3 million retweets.

Twitter actually crashed.

It was technically a Samsung ad, but she tweeted from her iPhone backstage.

That Oscars’ night brought in 43 million viewers.

It was her biggest public moment.

She became the highest paid woman on television, $75 million per year.

Then came her brand.

In June 2015, she launched Ed by Ellen.

It started with $175 blazers and $50 kale printed coasters.

The name came from Porsche’s pet name for her.

It grew fast.

Her stuff landed in Nordstrom, Gap Kids, Bed Bath, and Beyond.

She launched a design show on HGTV.

She published a home decor book for $35.

In 2016, she started Ellen Digital Ventures and took full control of Ellen Tube, her video platform.

Her net worth soared.

By 2018, she was worth around 450 million.

In 2007, she hosted the Oscars for the first time and got 40.

18 million viewers.

Ratings with young women jumped 15%.

The theme that year was classic movie quotes.

She crushed it.

Critics called her performance safe, smart, and smooth.

Then in 2016, President Obama gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

It happened on November 22nd.

Ellen cried.

Obama said she carried the burden of coming out when nobody else dared.

He said she made the world more honest and open.

That day she stood next to legends like Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen, and Michael Jordan.

The award made her not just a star, but a symbol.

She had already raised nearly $10 million for Hurricane Katrina relief by 2006.

She went back to New Orleans in 2006 and personally helped open a restaurant for a woman who had lost everything.

She used her show, her name, her platform.

Warner Brothers gave $500,000.

She gave voice to people ignored by the government.

She stood on the streets of her hometown and shouted into a bullhorn, “Rebuild New Orleans.

” And through all of this, Ellen kept building.

Her show made between 70 filers and $90 million a year.

She kept 60% of that through syndication, product deals, and ad revenue.

She made about $287 and $356 per episode.

That’s roughly $50 million just for showing up and hosting.

She signed deals with CoverGirl.

She kept voicing Dory.

She and Porsche flipped real estate.

buying and selling dozens of huge homes across California.

In July 2020, something unexpected started to unravel behind the colorful lights and smiling faces of the Ellen Degenerous show.

A BuzzFeed news article was published on July 16th that exposed what 36 current and former employees had experienced while working there.

And it wasn’t the fun, joyful environment viewers imagined.

Instead, they described it as a place full of fear.

Some said you could be punished just for taking time off after a parent died.

Others said they were told not to speak to Ellen or even look at her.

One woman, who was black, shared how senior producers made rude comments about her hairstyle, calling it too black for TV.

Another black employee said they were told to blow out their hair to seem more professional.

These weren’t just small issues.

They painted a pattern.

The be kind motto the show was famous for didn’t exist off camera.

One employee summed it up in a way that stuck with many.

That be kind thing only happens when cameras are on.

It’s all for show.

At the center of many complaints was executive producer Ed Glven.

Workers said he ruled through fear.

His behavior was aggressive and crossed many lines.

Over a dozen staff members said he would touch women without their consent, especially during live tapings.

He reportedly grabbed waists, touched backs, made comments about their bodies, and once even pressed himself against a woman in the editing room.

Women at the show were so uncomfortable that they developed a buddy system just to avoid being alone near him.

One season, Glavin fired nine stage managers, almost all men, just because he could.

When people complained, he told them they should feel lucky to have jobs and threaten to blacklist them if they cause trouble.

He stayed in power for more than 7 years before finally being fired in August 2020.

The stories didn’t stop there.

Several employees said they were fired after taking time off for surgeries, mental health, or even deaths in their families.

One staffer said they were let go just days after their mother died.

Their boss told them grief made people unreliable.

Another person had to choose between their job and their child’s bone marrow transplant.

When they refused to reschedu the surgery to suit the show’s taping, they were demoted and later fired.

A woman who complained about racist jokes in the writer room was terminated 2 weeks later.

The show’s HR department didn’t help.

One former worker said they felt totally helpless and trapped.

But it wasn’t just producers causing harm.

Kevin Leman, who was headwriter and a co-executive producer, faced over 10 allegations of sexual harassment, all from male employees.

The worst happened in 2013 when he allegedly cornered a junior writer in a bathroom at a party and asked for oral sex, promising it would help his career.

He reportedly groped other male assistants during meetings.

One staffer said Lehman grabbed his genitals in front of others.

Another said Lehman kissed him on the neck in the parking garage while pinning him against a wall.

He had a pattern targeting young male writers and offering them career boosts in exchange for sexual favors.

He once told a victim, “This is how Hollywood works, kid.

” Complaints started as early as 2014, but were ignored until BuzzFeed’s report forced the company to take action.

He was finally fired in August 2020.

Then came a chilling story in 2025.

A former cameraman described something he called the Ellen gaze.

He said it was a cold look Ellen gave, her eyes narrowing, cheekbones raised, like a queen deciding who to punish next.

This cameraman said the show went through nine stage managers in just one season, all men, because Ellen didn’t seem to like male staff.

Some male employees were terrified of being seen talking to Porsche, Ellen’s wife.

Even a short, polite chat could get you fired out of jealousy.

One moment stood out.

The cameraman saw Ellen ban Gordon Ramsay from the show after he complained about spoiled meat used in a cooking segment.

She told the producers, “Don’t let this guy on the show again.

” But the most painful part was that same bone marrow transplant case.

The producer who was told to reschedule his child’s surgery.

This detail came up again, reminding people how loyalty to the show always came before compassion.

That July, actor Brad Garrett, who had been on Ellen’s show multiple times, finally spoke out at midnight on July 31st, 2020.

He tweeted that mistreatment on the show comes from the top and that he knew more than one person who was treated horribly.

The tweet exploded.

Leah Thompson, another respected actress, backed him up within hours.

She simply replied, “True story it is.

” It was the moment insiders stopped whispering, but for many fans, the cracks had started earlier.

In November 2019, during a live interview, actress Dakota Johnson calmly and clearly corrected Ellen.

Ellen had joked that she wasn’t invited to Dakota’s 30th birthday.

Dakota looked at her and said, “Actually, that’s not true, Ellen.

You were invited.

” She even mentioned Ellen had complained the year before about not being invited.

When Ellen looked surprised, Dakota added, “Ask everybody.

Ask Jonathan, your producer.

” Ellen awkwardly admitted she had a scheduling conflict.

The moment was raw, and it showed viewers something they weren’t used to seeing, someone standing up to Ellen on her own show.

Taylor Swift had a moment like that, too.

In 2012, Ellen kept teasing her about dating Zack Efron.

Taylor denied it, but Ellen kept saying, “Yes, you did.

” While the audience laughed, then Ellen made Taylor play a game.

She had to ring a bell when she saw someone she dated on a slideshow.

Taylor said she didn’t want to, that it made her uncomfortable.

But Ellen pushed.

Taylor looked near tears and asked, “Do you know how bad this makes me feel?” The clip went viral years later on Tik Tok and people saw it differently.

It wasn’t funny anymore.

It was sad.

In 2008, Ellen put Mariah Carey in an impossible position.

Rumors were swirling that Carrie might be pregnant.

And Ellen brought out champagne and said, “Let’s toast to you not being pregnant.

” Mariah protested, saying this was peer pressure.

But she still took a sip.

Ellen then shouted, “You’re pregnant.

” At the time, it seemed like a joke.

But years later, Mariah revealed she had miscarried shortly after that show and had not been ready to tell anyone about the pregnancy.

That moment wasn’t just awkward.

It was deeply painful.

Kathy Griffin also had a long feud with Ellen.

It started back in 1996 when Griffin did a guest spot on Ellen’s sitcom.

She was told to sing a jingle during the table read, and the way Ellen gave the order made her feel humiliated.

Their relationship only got worse after Joan Rivers died.

Griffin wanted Ellen to help with a tribute.

Ellen refused and said Joan was mean.

Griffin exploded and later wrote about it in her 2017 book.

She didn’t name Ellen directly, but everyone knew.

She claimed Ellen even got her banned from an Emmy dressing room.

After the BuzzFeed investigation, things moved fast.

Warner Media launched an inquiry.

Three top producers, Lehman, Glavin, and Jonathan Norman, were fired by August 17th, 2020.

Former employees shared more stories.

One black staffer said a writer told them, “I only know the names of the white people who work here.

” Another person who came back after a suicide attempt was fired soon after.

Ellen spoke to her team of over 200 people through a video call and said she had run the show like a machine, not like a place for human beings.

When season 18 of her show opened on September 21st, 2020, she started with an apology, but her words didn’t land.

She said things like, “If I’ve ever let someone down,” which made it sound like she wasn’t sure it had even happened.

Then she said the attacks against her were orchestrated, as if someone was out to get her.

People saw it as her trying to play the victim.

And once again, Brad Garrett and Leah Thompson reminded everyone that this was not new.

It had gone on for years.

The damage was already done.

From September 2020 to March 2021, over a million viewers stopped watching.

The show dropped from 2.6 million to 1.5 million, almost 43%.

Young women under 54, the show’s main audience dropped by 38%.

ad revenue fell from $131 million to $105 million, a $26 million loss.

Even the episode where she apologized brought in a spike at first, but then people stopped coming back.

By 2022, the show was struggling to stay above 1.5 million viewers.

The final episode aired on May 26th, 2022.

After 19 seasons, it was over.

In 2024, Ellen released a Netflix special called For Your Approval.

It was her last performance.

She joked about being kicked out of show business for being mean.

She said the Be Kind Girl wasn’t kind.

She talked about therapy and how hard it was to deal with the backlash.

Then she and Porsche moved to the UK, settling on a $20 million estate in the Cotswwells.

They arrived the day before the US election in November 2024 and decided to stay after waking up to crying texts from friends about Trump’s win.

But even that escape didn’t last long.

In July 2025, they put the property up for sale for 30 million, saying they needed better facilities for their horses.