Ellen DeGeneres Is Once Again Getting Dragged All Over The Internet For Allegedly Treating Her Employees Like Shit
Source - Crew members on The Ellen DeGeneres Show are reportedly furious about how they have been treated amid the coronavirus crisis. According to Variety‘s Matt Donnelly, the talk show’s stage crew has received little communication about pay, decreased working hours, or their physical health while the show remained shut down in March.
In addition, sources say that Ellen higher-ups have hired a non-union company to help produce remote episodes from DeGeneres’ home, a move that has further alienated the show’s union-affiliated crew.
Variety reports that during the two-week period from late March to April 9, Ellen‘s stage crew members, a group of more than 30 employees, received no information about their compensation. Phone calls to producers and Telepictures, the Warner Bros.-owned unit that produces the show, often went unanswered, and if they were answered, little information was revealed.
Last week, after the prolonged communication blackout, the majority of Ellen crew members were told to prepare for a “60% reduction in pay, even as the show continues to air,” sources tell Donnelly.
And just like that...the dominos continue to fall for Ellen DeGeneres. I wrote a blog about her allegedly mistreating her employees a month back that picked up some steam. Long story short, some guy started a twitter thread asking people for their worst Ellen stories and it ended up going viral. You can read it here:
All things considered, it's not exactly surprising that she's getting dragged again. Like I said in the first blog, you don't have to care when you're making $90 million per year. You should, but you don't have to.
Warner brothers released the following statement to try and cover her ass...
“Our executive producers and Telepictures are committed to taking care of our staff and crew and have made decisions first and foremost with them in mind,” they said. The studio insisted that crew members are continuing to be paid at reduced hours, but acknowledged that communication about this process could have been improved.
Do I believe them? Absolutely not. The rest of the story is essentially a bunch of back and fourth between Warner Bros and the employees that boils down to the fact that they were left in the dark and eventually replaced with another company once COVID-19 set in. Keep in mind that a lot of the crew has been with the show since it began 17 years ago. By the way, "crew" often times refers to people who don't sit at desks. They're the people who are physically working the set- stage hands, gaffers, etc.. Call me crazy, but I feel like the second highest paid person on television should've probably stepped up and taken care of those people. That's what her counterparts are doing…
This attitude seems at odds with that of DeGeneres’ talk show counterparts, including Jimmy Kimmel, who is reportedly paying crew members out of his own pocket, and John Oliver, Samantha Bee, and Desus and Mero, all of whom continue to pay employees in full. With a massive syndication deal, Ellen is one of the most successful shows on television, and DeGeneres among the highest-paid stars.
You can read more about the whole situation here.
But wait! There's more…shorty after that story was published, another one a was published in which a former guest came out saying they too had a shitty experience on the show…
YouTuber NikkieTutorials (Nikkie De Jager) has revealed more about her experience on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in a recent interview, according to Pop Crave.
De Jager reportedly told &C Magazine that the friendly, welcoming atmosphere you see when watching "Ellen" isn't the reality in the studio.
De Jager spoke about her "Ellen" experience shortly after her appearance on a Dutch talk show. She suggested DeGeneres was "cold and distant" when the cameras were turned off.
"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 said, according to a translation by YouTuber tea account Sebastian Williams. "It's nice that you say 'hi' before the show. She didn't."
She added it was a "huge honor" to be on stage with DeGeneres, "but it wasn't as nice as I thought."
And there you have it. When it rains it pours in Ellen world. I care a million times less about NikkieTutorials having her feelings hurt than I do about the union guy trying to put food on his table, but it was still worth mentioning.
New episode of Ellen today 3:00PM!