Why 2020 has been the year of backlash against Ellen DeGeneres

4 min readNov 11, 2020

The talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres has long been considered a beloved celebrity for her friendly and funny public demeanor. But in 2020, that all could change as complaints of inconsiderate behavior have popped up in recent news stories.
The Dutch beauty YouTuber Nikkie de Jager, also known as NikkieTutorials, was one of the first people to call out DeGeneres, saying on a talk show in her home country that the beloved host was “cold and distant” during de Jager’s appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

In April, a Twitter thread asking for stories about DeGeneres being “one of the meanest people alive” was widely shared, garnering more than 2,000 replies of people describing uncomfortable or off-putting experiences with the host.
Crew members for “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” also spoke out this month, saying they had not received any communication from DeGeneres or show executives about their pay or working hours during the coronavirus pandemic.
With accusations of unkind or inconsiderate behavior swirling around the talk-show host, it can be hard to keep track of all the controversy. Below, we broke down all the backlash DeGeneres has received this year.
Nikkie de Jager appeared on DeGeneres’ show in January.
Nikkie de Jager appeared on DeGeneres’ show in January. Photo: The Ellen DeGeneres Show
NikkieTutorials in February was one of the first people to speak out
The Dutch beauty vlogger first visited “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in January to discuss her experience as a transgender woman after coming out earlier that month.
But de Jager said during an appearance on the Dutch talk show “De Wereld Draait Door” in February that it hadn’t been a completely positive experience for her.
“Let me say that there’s a big difference between this show and Ellen DeGeneres, and I’m saying that in favor of this show,” de Jager told the host Matthijs van Nieuwkerk, according to a translation by the YouTuber Sebastian Williams, a native Dutch speaker. “It’s nice that you say ‘hi’ before the show. She didn’t.”
When van Nieuwkerk asked de Jager whether DeGeneres was “cold and distant,” the beauty YouTuber agreed.
And on Thursday, another interview with de Jager came to light in which she expanded on her experience with DeGeneres and DeGeneres’ show. De Jager reportedly told &C Magazine that the friendly, welcoming atmosphere portrayed to viewers wasn’t the reality in the studio.

“Maybe I’m being naive, but I expected them to welcome me with confetti: Welcome to ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’!” she said in the interview seen by Pop Crave. “But instead I got greeted by an angry intern, who was a bit overworked. I expected a Disney show, but I got a ‘Teletubbies’ after dark.”
According to de Jager, she didn’t receive the same VIP treatment as other celebrity guests on the show, despite having millions of views on her YouTube videos.
“Every guest at Ellen had a private toilet, but I didn’t,” she said, referring to a bathroom. “I couldn’t even use the closest toilet to me because it was reserved for the Jonas brothers.”
DeGeneres was called out by Twitter users after a thread asking for “insane” stories about her went viral.
DeGeneres was called out by Twitter users after a thread asking for “insane” stories about her went viral. Photo: YouTube
In April, a Twitter thread asking for stories about DeGeneres being ‘one of the meanest people alive’ received more than 2,000 responses
A comedian named Kevin T. Porter crowdsourced “insane stories you’ve heard about Ellen being mean” in exchange for $2 donations to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank — and received thousands of responses.

While the accuracy of the stories is impossible to verify from tweets alone, news outlets including Insider picked up on the thread. One Twitter user accused DeGeneres of using her fan art as a prop, while another described her getting mad at a server with chipped nail polish who waited on the host and her wife, Portia, at brunch.

There were also stories about DeGeneres’ behavior while filming, including accusations that she wouldn’t let crew members eat meat, that she fired an autistic custodian for greeting her, and that she made anyone entering her office chew gum from a bowl outside her door since she had a “sensitive nose.”
DeGeneres hasn’t responded publicly to any of the accusations. A representative for the talk-show host didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment regarding this story.

The host also faced backlash after joking that self-isolating in her mansion was ‘like being in jail’
On her April 6 show, DeGeneres compared self-isolating in her California mansion to being in prison — and Twitter users were quick to call out the talk-show host for what they felt was an insensitive remark.
“One thing I’ve learned from being in quarantine is that people — this is like being in jail, is what this is,” DeGeneres said during the segment, adding, “It’s mostly because I’ve been wearing the same clothes for 10 days, and everyone in here is gay.”

DeGeneres seemed amused by her comparison, smiling and remarking, “The jokes that I have.”
After DeGeneres shared the clip on Twitter, users were quick to call out the host for her remarks about prisons, especially during a time when prison inmates are at an increased risk of contracting COVID-19. Some pointed out that inmates in prisons were far more likely to die from the novel coronavirus than the larger population — especially wealthy people like DeGeneres.

In April, news broke that DeGeneres’ crew was ‘furious’ about a lack of communication over their pay during the coronavirus shutdown
Variety cited two anonymous sources as saying that the long-running talk show’s core stage crew — which consists of more than 30 employees — had not received any communication about the status of their working hours or pay and that producers had not checked in about their mental and physical health.
Furthermore, the report said crew members were left in the dark about how much they would be paid, or whether they would be paid at all, for more than two weeks.

Why 2020 has been the year of backlash against Ellen DeGeneres

Written by Nurul Dwiagustin6