She’s one of America’s most beloved TV hosts, but it turns out Ellen DeGeneres has made a LOT of enemies throughout her career.
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Over the weekend, Twitter was flooded with stories about the 62-year-old’s diva behaviour and shocking treatment of her staff.
The viral movement started after comedian Kevin T Porter – who dubbed the TV star as “one of the meanest people alive” – asked users who had experience dealing with Ellen to come forward and share their story.
Porter also promised to donate US$2 for every story shared to the Los Angeles foodbank.
“Right now we all need a little kindness. You know, like Ellen Degeneres always talks about!” he wrote.
“She’s also notoriously one of the meanest people alive Respond to this with the most insane stories you’ve heard about Ellen being mean & I’ll match every one w/ $2 to @LAFoodBank.”
He then followed up with a second tweet reading: “Oh and the caveat is yes they have to be real! Cause we need some REAL kindness right now.”
Within minutes, the post was flooded with responses from food servers and TV workers wanting to reveal the shocking treatment they’d experienced at the hands of the TV giant.
Amongst them were tales of how she had demanded staff not look or speak to her, forced staff to chew gum before coming near her and once got a waitress fired because her nail polish was chipped.
One typed in response to Kevin’s message: “A) She has a “sensitive nose” so everyone must chew gum from a bowl outside her office before talking to her and if she thinks you smell that day you have to go home and shower.”
Another wrote: “I was PAing for the Letterman special and her rider was 50 items long and one was specific vegan cauliflower puffs that are rarely sold so i had to drive to 15 different grocery stores to find it and she didn’t even touch them.”
One TV staffer shared: “I was her agents’ exec asst for a year, so many! 1st thing you learn on the desk is if he was on a call w another client You have to beep in & say ‘your kids on the other line, it’s an emergency’ so he could take the call as she could never be called back bc she would fire him lol.”
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“She had a PA fired from a commercial for leading her to set the “long” way,” told another.
Recalling serving Ellen and her wife, another user added added: “I worked @RealFoodDaily, served her & Portia at brunch. She wrote a letter to the owner & complained about my chipped nail polish (not that it was on her plate but just that it was on my hand). I had worked till closing the night before & this was next morn, almost got me fired.”
TV writer Benjamin Siemon decided to provide the thread with some stories of his own, that included DeGeneres having an irrationally “sensitive nose” and often picking “someone different to really hate’ each day on set.
“Everyone must chew gum from a bowl outside her office before talking to her and if she thinks you smell that day you have to go home and shower,” he alleged.
“A new staff member was told ‘every day she picks someone different to really hate. It’s not your fault, just suck it up for the day and she’ll be mean to someone else the next day. They didn’t believe it but it ended up being entirely true.”
Ellen has yet to respond to the claims.
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