How Ellen DeGeneres’ fall from grace in 2020 began with a single tweet

Ellen DeGeneres attends the premiere of Netflix\’s “Green Eggs And Ham” at Hollywood American Legion on Nov. 03, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images)

Before Ellen DeGeneres abruptly canceled four upcoming dates in her standup tour, including one in San Francisco, she told an audience in Santa Rosa on July 1 that “this is the last time you’re going to see me,” saying she was “going bye-bye” and retiring after being “kicked out of show business for being mean.”

“After my Netflix special, I’m done,” DeGeneres said during a Q&A portion of the show, SFGate reported. She was referring to a Netflix presentation of her “Ellen’s Last Stand… Up Tour,” which is due to hit the streamer later this year. DeGeneres, however, is still scheduled to perform in San Francisco on July 20 and to continue her tour in other cities through August.

Still, DeGeneres’ complaints about being “kicked out of show business” bring to mind her stunning fall from grace in the spring and summer of 2020 and how the momentum began with a single tweet. That tweet, in turn, was followed by a searing investigative report in Buzzfeed News and an internal investigation at her eponymous day-time talk show, all of which undermined her global, multimillion brand built on her “be kind” persona.

The expose in Buzzfeed described how DeGeneres’ show had become a toxic workplace in which she played favorites and employees faced “racism, fear and intimidation” and were told to not speak to the star, if they saw her around the office. DeGeneres apologized that summer. But the following spring, she announced that she was ending her show the next year, after its 19th season.

But before the Buzzfeed report and the internal investigation, DeGeneres’ reputational downfall appears to have been set in motion by the tweet, according to the Daily Mail. Near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when everyone was gripped with fear and going into lockdown, comedian and podcaster Kevin T. Porter went on X, when it was known as Twitter, to ask people to share their “most insane stories you’ve heard about Ellen being mean.”

“Right now we all need a little kindness,” Porter said on X. “You know, like Ellen Degeneres always talks about!”

“She’s also notoriously one of the meanest people alive,” Porter continued. “Respond to this with the most insane stories you’ve heard about Ellen being mean & I’ll match every one w/ $2 to @LAFoodBank.”

Perhaps because people didn’t have too much else to do, Porter’s post was inundated with more than 2,000 replies from people, many of whom claimed to have unpleasant encounters with DeGeneres, or who heard reasonable-sounding, second-hand accounts of others being treated dismissively, or worse.

“Working for her, I was instructed that I can’t look her in the eye and never ever say hi to her first,” one person tweeted, saying she also was told that the star “definitely won’t be saying hi to you in the first place.”

“I can’t vouch for anything being ‘real’ if it didn’t happen to me, but this is as close as I can get,” another person wrote. “My friend who worked at Real Food Daily says Ellen came in and dined and when she saw her server had a chipped nail, Ellen called management and tried to get her fired.” Others spoke of knowing of fans who had unpleasant experiences being in the show’s audience or who had things they made featured on the show without being given credit.

Within two days of posting his tweet, Porter expressed surprise over all the replies and acknowledged that it was hard to tell whether some stories were “real or not.” But he said he had gathered about 300 plausible-sounding stories about DeGeneres being mean and donated $600 to the Los Angeles Food Bank.

Porter’s tweet appeared to embolden people to direct more criticism at DeGeneres, especially after she filmed her April 6, 2020 from her home, where she was on lockdown, the Daily Mail reported. Speaking to the camera from her multimillion-dollar estate, DeGeneres jokingly compared her plight to that of prisoners in jail. People took to social media to call her out for being tone deaf and out of touch, pointing out that many Americans were dying and that most people watching her show were doing so from spaces that were much smaller and less luxurious.

As the social media backlash against DeGeneres grew, it included people sharing clips of segments on her show that, in retrospect, hinted at problematic behavior, the Daily Mail reported. Notably, there was DeGeneres’ awkward 2019 interview with actor Dakota Johnson. After DeGeneres insisted to Johnson that she hadn’t been invited to her recent birthday party, Johnson pushed back, saying, “Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen. You were invited.”

Johnson told DeGeneres she had made sure to invite her because the talk-show host complained about not being invited to her last birthday party the last time she appeared on her show. “I didn’t even know you liked me,” Johnson said, “but I did invite you, and you didn’t come.” When DeGeneres demurred, Johnson told her, “Ask everybody. Ask Jonathan, your producer.”

Five years later, as DeGeneres says she’s winding down her career, she used her time on stage at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa to address the 2020 reports and to mine some dark humor from her experience of facing her own version of cancel culture. She said she had been booted from show business before — in 1998, when her sitcom “Ellen” was canceled after she came out as gay.

“Next time, I’ll be kicked out for being old. Old, gay and mean, the triple crown,” DeGeneres joked, according to SFGate. She acknowledged that she could be “demanding and impatient and tough” and “a strong women.”

But DeGeneres ultimately refuted the claims that savaged her career. She told the crowd: “I am many things, but I am not mean.”

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