Trouble at Ellen: Where did it all go wrong for America's talk show queen?

In March of this year, podcaster Kevin T. Porter posed a question to his now 47,000 followers.

Porter, who runs podcasts about Christian pop culture and the Gilmore Girls, wrote: “Right now we all need a little kindness. You know, like Ellen DeGeneres always talks about! 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.”

He promised to match people's stories with a $2 donation to the Los Angeles Food Bank. Responses started pouring in immediately and the post received almost 5,000 comments alleging that the show host known for her goofy grin and slightly silly dance moves was not as kind as she appeared on television.

One user wrote: “I'm a little late but a former art teacher of mine told me a story of him being hired by Ellen to paint her a painting. When he finished and showed it to her he told me she told him and I quote ‘A dog could piss a better painting than that.’”

Another tweeted: “When I was 15 @TheEllenShow was doing a contest of fans making a bust of her and sending it to her. I worked so hard on this and even wrote her a letter. Weeks later she used it as a prop in a game and gave it away to a random person with $500 attached to the bottom,” sharing accompanying photos.

One respondent claimed that while working on a show close to the Ellen set where they were celebrating her showrunner’s birthday with grilled steaks, “Ellen sent someone over to demand they stop, as she doesn't eat meat. She's the worst.”

“She’s the worst,” seemed to be a common sentiment, whether from people who worked with her show over the years (it’s been on for 17) or from people who had heard stories about her behavior.

Porter’s Twitter bio now reads, “threw the first brick at Ellenwall.”

For people who worked even adjacent to the entertainment industry, there were rumors for years that Ellen wasn’t exactly how she appeared on TV - murmurs she refused to make eye contact and wasn’t the smiling dancing queen once the cameras cut. Her devoted fans, meanwhile, dismissed the rumors as attempts to topple a woman at the height of her career.

Marvel’s Runaways actress Ever Carradine wrote that she’s known Ellen and her wife, Australian actress Portia de Rossi, for years. “Want a story?” she asked, writing that Ellen “moved mountains” so her husband Cody Brown could perform on the show before his cancer treatment. “Why don’t we flip this thing around and reply with a moment of joy you’ve felt because Ellen is in this world,” she wrote, ending with Ellen’s famous hashtag “#BeKind.”

Though Porter's Twitter thread gathered attention online, Ellen remained silent. But the trouble for the talk show host was just beginning.

On July 16, Buzzfeed released an article where one current and 10 former employees spoke out about The Ellen DeGeneres Show workplace, calling it a toxic environment and accusing staff of various microaggressions.

Then, on July 27, Variety reported that the workplace was under investigation by WarnerMedia.

Now, allegations about the company culture are pouring in, leading some to believe Ellen will be forced to step down.

On July 31, Ellen finally broke her silence, confirming that an “internal investigation” was taking place at her daytime television show. She also addressed allegations about the show’s workplace culture in a note to staff.

“On day one of our show, I told everyone in our first meeting that ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ would be a place of happiness — no one would ever raise their voice, and everyone would be treated with respect. Obviously, something changed, and I am disappointed to learn that this has not been the case,” she wrote.

The show's executive producer, Ed Glavin, was reportedly asked to leave, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Ellen’s apology had a mixed response, with some claiming she was complicit in the poor company culture. Everybody Loves Raymond star Brad Garrett tweeted that he knows “more than one who were treated horribly by her,” and claimed it was “common knowledge” in the industry.

Radio host Neil Breen called his experience with Ellen “bizarre” and claimed he was told he wasn’t allowed to “talk to her” or even look at her during her 2013 appearance on Australia’s Today show.

He claims he was told: “Now Neil, no one is to talk to Ellen. You don’t talk to her. You don’t approach her. You don’t look at her. She’ll come in, she’ll sit down, she’ll talk to Richard, then Ellen will leave.” He said of her staff, “I can tell you the people who work with her walked on eggshells the whole time.”

Before Ellen was Ellen, she was born in the New Orleans suburb Metairie, Louisiana, where she was raised as a Christian Scientist, a religion that didn’t allow her to even take aspirin.

She attended the University of New Orleans for only one semester and dropped out, going on to work as a house painter, bartender, hostess, waitress, vacuum salesperson, and oyster shucker. At a commencement speech at Tulane University in 2009, she opened up about the difficulty of living as a gay woman who wasn’t publicly out, saing she had “no ambition” when she finished school.

She publicly came out on the cover of Time in 1997 with a headline that proclaimed “Yep, I’m Gay.” The admission of her sexuality was controversial at the time and she had trouble getting roles after her sitcom, where her character Ellen Morgan came out, was canceled.

In 2003, she started hosting The Ellen DeGeneres Show. It has since received a whopping 171 Daytime Emmy Award nominations, 17 People’s Choice Awards and becoming one of the top most-subscribed to channels on YouTube.

She has hosted Oscars, built a powerful network of friends, from A-listers to former presidents (particularly George W. Bush, a personal friend) and even won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which President Obama awarded her.

Despite claims of poor ratings and fresh allegations, producers on The Ellen Degeneres Show insist that it is not facing cancellation.

A number of Ellen's celebrity friends have also expressed public support for her.

"I know I can’t speak for anyone else’s experience besides my own but I want to acknowledge that I have only ever had positive takeaways from my time with Ellen... I think we all have witnessed the light and continual fight for equality that she has brought" wrote Katy Perry.

Ashton Kutcher said that he and his team had been treated with “respect & kindness” by her on Twitter. Prince Harry’s friend Nacho Figueras - who introduced Harry to Ellen - wrote two lengthy Instagram captions defending her and called her a “great human being.”

However, comedian and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend creator Rachel Bloom appeared to attack those in a powerful position coming out to defend her: “Just wanna say that I have both worked behind the scenes of tv shows and been the celebrity guest on them and the two experiences are very different. Having a good time being a guest does not necessarily have anything to do with the experiences of the employees.”

Is this the end of the dancing host's long reign as America's talk show queen? In 2018 she told The New York Times that she changes her mind all the time about when she should retire from the show. Now it looks like the decision might be made for her.