Ellen DeGeneres Returns to Stand-Up, Says She Became the “Most Hated Person in America”

Ellen DeGeneres is dancing her way back into the public eye. After about two years out of the spotlight amid toxic-workplace allegations on her daytime talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, she performed a stand-up set at Largo in Los Angeles on Wednesday, April 24, and addressed how she was “kicked out of show business” for being “mean,” according to People.

In June of 2020, DeGeneres was the subject of a Buzzfeed News article that alleged that producers and managers on the Emmy-winning Ellen DeGeneres Show had fostered a toxic workplace, with DeGeneres—who ended every show with the message “be kind”—at the helm. At the time, DeGeneres apologized to staff, and later, on camera, and three senior staff members—head writer Kevin Leman and executive producers Ed Glavin and Jonathan Norman—left the show. In the aftermath of the allegations, the show hemorrhaged viewers. DeGeneres announced in May of 2021 that her show would be coming to an end after 19 seasons.

DeGeneres reportedly said that her new comedy show, Ellen’s Last Stand…Up Tour, will be taped for a Netflix special. Per Rolling Stone, DeGeneres did not beat around the bush during her Wednesday performance. “I’ve been kicked out of show business,” she reportedly quipped. “There’s no mean people in show business.” She also joked that she became the “most hated person in America” because of the allegations. “The hate went on for a long time and I would try to avoid looking at the news,” she said, according to People. “The ‘be kind’ girl wasn’t kind. That was the headline.” Part of the “problem,” DeGeneres added, was that she painted herself into a corner with her public persona. She said that she became a “one-dimensional character who gave stuff away and danced up steps.”

After the show, DeGeneres took questions from the audience and further opened up about that period of her life. She said that her fall from grace didn’t only affect her, it also negatively impacted her wife, Portia De Rossi. “She was watching it happen to me,” DeGeneres reportedly told the audience. “She went through it with me.” When asked if she continued to “dance” after the show went off air, DeGeneres responded, “No…It’s hard to dance when you’re crying.” During the scandal, DeGeneres admitted, she “had a hard time” and “didn’t get out” much. As for how her show concluded, she said that she “hated the way the show ended” because she “loved that show so much.”

“I’m making jokes about what happened to me, but it was devastating,” she said. “It took a long time for me to want to do anything again.”

DeGeneres noted that this was not the first time she was excommunicated from Hollywood, citing the cancellation of her sitcom Ellen in the ’90s shortly after she came out as a lesbian. “For those of you keeping score, this is the second time I’ve been kicked out of show business,” she said. “Eventually they’re going to kick me out for a third time because I’m mean, old, and gay.”

Although she’s spent most of the past few years out of the spotlight, DeGeneres has kept busy. She’s been focused on the gorilla conservation campus that was founded in her honor in Rwanda, and she reportedly told the audience Wednesday that she’s spent a lot of her time gardening as well as adopting pet chickens. But she admitted that the past few years have “been such a toll on my ego and my self-esteem.” “There’s such extremes in this business, people either love you and idolize you or they hate you, and those people somehow are louder,” she said. But it looks like DeGeneres believes that the worst is in the past. “I am dancing now,” she said.

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